Carnegie  Endowment  for  International  Peace 

DIVISION  OF  INTERCOURSE  AND  EDUCATION 

Publication  No.  4 


^REPORT 

OF  THE 

INTERNATIONAL  COMMISSION 

•••  •» 
••*• 

To  Inquire  into  the  Causes  and  Conduct 

OF  THE 

BALKAN  WARS 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  ENDOWMENT 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

1914 


PR 


COPYRIGHT  1914 

BY    THE 

•CARNEGIE  ENDOWMENT  FOR   INTERNATIONAL   PEACE, 
WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 


PRESS    OF    BYRON    S.    ADAMS 
WASHINGTON,   D.    C. 


PREFACE 

The  circumstances  which  attended  the  Balkan  wars  of  1912  and  1913  were 
of  such  character  as  to  fix  upon  them  the  attention  of  the  civilized  world.  The 
conflicting  reports  as  to  what  actually  occurred  before  and  during  these  wars,  to- 
gether with  the  persistent  rumors  often  supported  by  specific  and  detailed  state- 
ments as  to  violations  of  the  laws  of  war  by  the  several  combatants,  made  it  im- 
portant that  an  impartial  and  exhaustive  examination  should  be  made  of  this 
entire  episode  in  contemporary  history.  The  purpose  of  such  an  impartial  exami- 
nation by  an  independent  authority  was  to  inform  public  opinion  and  to  make  plain 
just  what  is  or  may  be  involved  in  an  international  war  carried  on  under  modern 
conditions.  If  the  minds  of  men  can  be  turned  even  for  a  short  time  away  from 
passion,  from  race  antagonism  and  from  national  aggrandizement  to  a  contem- 
plation of  the  individual  and  national  losses  due  to  war  and  to  the  shocking 
horrors  which  modern  warfare  entails,  a  step  and  by  no  means  a  short  one,  will 
have  been  taken  toward  the  substitution  of  justice  for  force  in  the  settlement 
of  international  differences. 

It  was  with  this  motive  and  for  this  purpose  that  the  Division  of  Inter- 
course and  Education  of  the  Carnegie  Endowment  for  International  Peace  con- 
stituted in  July,  1913,  an  International  Commission  of  Inquiry  to  study  the  recent 
Balkan  wars  and  to  visit  the  actual  scenes  where  fighting  had  taken  place  and 
the  territory  which  had  been  devastated.  The  presidency  of  this  International 
Commission  of  Inquiry  was  entrusted  to  Baron  d'Estournelles  de  Constant, 
Senator  of  France,  who  had  represented  his  country  at  the  First  and  Second 
Hague  Conferences  of  1899  and  of  1907,  and  who  as  President  Fondateur  of  the 
Conciliation  Internationale,  has  labored  so  long  and  so  effectively  to  bring  the 
various  nations  of  the  world  into  closer  and  more  sympathetic  relations.  With 
Baron  d'Estournelles  de  Constant  there  were  associated  men  of  the  highest 
standing,  representing  different  nationalities,  who  were  able  to  bring  to  this  impor- 
tant task  large  experience  and  broad  sympathy. 

The  result  of  the  work  of  the  International  Commission  of  Inquiry  is  con- 
tained in  the  following  report.  This  report,  which  has  been  written  without 
prejudice  and  without  partisanship,  is  respectfully  commended  to  the  attention  of 
the  governments,  the  people  and  the  press  of  the  civilized  world.  To  those  who 
so  generously  participated  in  its  preparation  as  members  of  the  International 
Commission  of  Inquiry,  the  Trustees  of  the  Carnegie  Endowment  for  Inter- 
national Peace  offer  an  expression  of  grateful  thanks. 

NICHOLAS  MURRAY  BUTLER, 

Acting  Director. 
February  22,  1914. 


MEMBERS  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION  OF  INQUIRY 


AUSTRIA  : 

Dr.  Josef  Redlich,  Professor  of  Public  Law  in  the  University  of  Vienna. 

FRANCE  : 

Baron  d'Estournelles  de  Constant,  Senator. 

M.  Justin  Godart,  lawyer  and  Member  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies. 

GERMANY : 

Dr.  Walther  Schiicking,  Professor  of  Law  at  the  University  of  Marburg. 

GREAT  BRITAIN: 

Francis  W.  Hirst,  Esq.,  Editor  of  The  Economist. 
Dr.  H.  N.  Brailsford,  journalist. 

RUSSIA  : 

Professor  Paul  Milioukov,  Member  of  the  Douma. 

UNITED  STATES: 

Dr.  Samuel  T.  Dutton,  Professor  in  Teachers'  College,  Columbia  University. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Preface.    By  Nicholas  Murray  Butler iii 

Members  of  the  Balkan  Commission  of  Inquiry iv 

Introduction.    By  Baron  d'Estournelles  de  Constant 1 

Why  this  Inquiry  ?   1 

The  Objections    3 

Constitution  and  Character  of  the  Commission 5 

Departure — Inquiry — Return  of  the  Commission 9 

The  Report   11 

The  Lesson  of  the  Two  Wars .• 15 

Chapter  I— The  Origin  of  the  Two  Balkan  Wars 21 

1.  The  Ethnography   and   National   Aspirations  of  the   Balkans 21 

2.  The  Struggle  for  Autonomy 3) 

3.  The  Alliance  and  the  Treaties 38 

4.  The  Conflict  between   the  Allies 49 

Chapter  II — The  War  and  the  Noncombatant  Population 71 

1.  The  Plight  of  the  Macedonian  Moslems  during  the  First  War 71 

2.  The  Conduct  of  the  Bulgarians  in  the  Second  War 78 

The  Massacre  at  Doxato   79 

The  Massacre  and  Conflagration  of  Serres 83 

Events    at   Demir-Hissar    92 

3.  The  Bulgarian  Peasant  and  the  Greek  Army 95 

The  Final  Exodus    106 

Chapter  III — Bulgarians,  Turks,   and   Servians 109 

1.  Adrianople     109 

The  Capture  of  the  Town 110 

The  Bulgarian    Administration    117 

The  Last  Days  of  the  Occupation 119 

2.  Thrace    123 

3.  The  Theater  of  the   Servian-Bulgarian   War 135 

Chapter  IV— The  War  and  the  Nationalities 148 

1.  Extermination,   Emigration,   Assimilation    148 

2.  Servian    Macedonia    158 

3.  Greek    Macedonia    186 

Chapter  V — The  War  and  International  Law 208 

Chapter  VI — Economic  Results  of  the  Wars 235 

Chapter  VII — The  Moral  and  Social  Consequences  of  the  Wars  and  the  Outlook  for 

the  Future  of  Macedonia   .  265 


Appendices 

Page 

Chapter  II — 

Appendix  A— The  Plight  of  the  Macedonian  Moslems  during  the  First  War 277 

Appendix  B— The  Conduct  of  the  Bulgarians  in  the  Second  War 285 

Appendix  C— The  Bulgarian  Peasant  and  the  Greek  Army 300 

Extracts   from   Letters   of   Greek    Soldiers 307 

Appendix  D— The  Servians  in  the   Second  War 317 

Chapter  Ill- 
Appendix  E— The    Accusation    326 

Report  by  a  Russian  Officer  in  the  London  Daily  Telegraph 326 

Appendix  F— The  Defense • 331 

Report  to  the  Commander  of  the  Kehlibarov  Reserve 331 

The  Miletits  Papers   333 

Appendix  G — Depositions    338 

Letter  of  Baroness  Varvara  Yxcoull  to  Mr.  Maxime  Kovalevsky  338 

Evidence  of  Turkish  Officers  Captured  at  Adrianople 341 

Depositions  of  Bulgarian   Officials    344 

Reports  of  the  Delegation   of  the   Armenian   Patriarchate:   The 

Disaster   of   Malgara    347 

Thrace    350 

Adrianople    353 

Statement  of  the  Bulgarian  Committee  at  Adrianople 354 

Appendix  H — Theater  of  the  Servian-Bulgarian  War 356 

Servian    Documents    356 

The  Medical  Reports   361 

Destruction   of  Towns   and   Villages 364 

Bulgarian   Documents    368 

Chapter  VI— 

Appendix  I — Bulgaria — Statistics    378 

Greece — Statistics     385 

Montenegro — Statistics    394 

Servia — Statistics    395 

Analysis  of  the  Report   399 


Maps 

Page 

Dialects  of  Macedonia.  After  A.  Belits.  From  the  Servian  Point  of  View 29 

Boundaries  of  the  Balkan  States  under  the  Treaty  of  St.  Stefano.  Conference  of 

Constantinople,  1876-77  32 

Map  Showing  the  National  Aspirations  of  the  Balkan  People  before  the  War.  After 

Paul  Dehn  38 

Contested  Regions  According  to  the  Map  Annexed  to  the  Treaty  of  Alliance 45 

Regions  Occupied  by  the  Belligerents.  End  of  April,  1913.  After  Balcanicus 55 

Territorial  Modifications  in  the  Balkans 70 

(1)  Conference  of  London. 

(2)  Treaty  of  Bucharest. 

Macedonia     from    the    Bulgarian    Point    of    View.      Map    in     Colors.      After    Vasil 

Kantchev    418 

Macedonia  from  the  Servian  Point  of  View.  Map  in  Colors.  After  Dr.  Tsviyits 419 


Illustrations 

Page 

1.  Ruins  of  Doxato   >•••     79 

2.  Finding  the  Bodies  of  Victims  at  Doxato 

3.  Gathering  the  Bodies  of  Victims 81 

4.  Bodies  of  Slain  Peasants   82 

5.  Victims  Who  Escaped  the  Serres  Slaughter 84 

6.  Ruins   of   Serres 

7.  Ruins    of    Serres 86 

8.  Ruins    of    Serres 86 

9.  Ruins   of    Serres 87 

10.  Ruins   of   Serres 88 

11.  Ruins    of    Serres 88 

12.  A  Popular  Greek  Poster 96 

13.  A  Popular  Greek  Poster 98 

14.  Isle  of  Toundja— Trees  Stripped  of  Bark  Which  the  Prisoners  Ate 112 

15.  Mosque  of  Sultan  Selim— A  Cupola  of  the  Dome  Rent  by  an  Explosive  Shell 116 

16.  Victims  Thrown  into  the  Arda  and  Drowned 122 

17.  Fragments  of  the  Gospel  in   Greek  Letters  found   in  the  Ruins  of  the  Osmanly 

Church 125 

18.  Bodies  of  Five  Murdered  Bulgarian  Officers 144 

19.  Refugees  Encamped  Outside  Salonica  152 

20.  Refugees  Encamped  Outside  Salonica  152 

21.  Refugees  Encamped  Outside  Salonica 152 

22.  The  Commission  Listening  to  Refugees  in  the  Samakov  Square 153 

23.  A  Bulgarian  Red  Cross  Convoy 217 

24.  Roumanian  Ravages  at  Petrohan   217 

25.  Shortened   Greek   Cartridges    224 

26.  In  the  Trenches   237 

27.  The    Dead    Sharp-shooter 237 

28.  The  Assault  Upon  Aivas  Baba 238 

29.  A  Funeral  Scene 238 

30.  In  Barb-Wire  Defences  of  Adrianople 238 

31.  Scene  from  the  Koumanovo  Battle 238 

32.  Service  Burial 239 

33.  A   Battlefield    240 

34.  Forgotten  in  the  Depths  of  a  Ravine 241 

35.  Piece  of  Ordnance  and  Gunners   242 

36.  Ruins  of   Voinitsa 245 

37.  Ruins  of   Voinitsa 245 

38.  Ravages  of  the  War  248 

39.  Ravages  of  the  War  248 

40.  Ravages  of  the  War  249 

41.  Ravages  of  the  War  _  249 

42.  Refugees 253 

43.  Refugees 253 

44.  Refugees 254 

45.  Refugees 254 

46.  Refugees 255 

47.  Refugees 255 

48.  Refugees \  256 

49.  Refugees '.  256 

50.  Facsimile  of  a  Letter  Written  by  a  Greek  Soldier  About  the  War. .............    '.  416 

51.  Envelope  of  the  Letter  Opposite 417 


REPORT 

OF  THE 

INTERNATIONAL  COMMISSION 

To  Inquire  into  the  Causes  and  Conduct 
OF  THE 

BALKAN  WARS 


INTRODUCTION 

WHY  THIS  INQUIRY? 

Why  this  report,  this  inquiry?  Is  it  necessary  after  so  many  other  reports 
and  investigations,  after  so  many  eloquent  appeals  made  in  vain, — appeals  to 
pity,  indignation  and  revolt,  ringing  at  one  and  the  same  time  from  all  countries, 
and  from  all  parties,  uttered  by  the  voices  of  Gladstone,  of  Bryce,  of  Pressense, 
of  Jaures,  of  Victor  Berard,  of  Pierre  Quillard,  of  Anatole  Leroy-Beaulieu,  of 
Denys  Cochin,  and  how  many  more  great  hearted  men  of  world  wide  au- 
thority? It  seems  as  if  all  this  had  gone  for  nothing.  The  facts  that  face 
us  today  are  a  tragic  and  derisive  denial  that  any  good  has  come  of  all  this 
eloquence  and  feeling.  Would  it  not  be  better  for  us  to  remain  silent,  and 
let  things  go? 

We  have  been  silent,  we  have  let  things  go  long  enough.  From  the  begin- 
ning of  the  first  war,  and  in  the  terrible  uncertainties  of  the  following  days,  I 
denounced  that  one  amongst  the  Balkan  rulers,  who  took  upon  himself, — he 
being  the  only  one  who  had  nothing  to  lose  by  it, — except  the  lives  of  his 
subjects! — to  precipitate  the  war.  But  that  being  done,  we  could  only  wish 
for  the  triumph  of  four  young  allied  peoples  in  shaking  off  the  domination 
of  the  Sultans  of  Constantinople,  in  the  interest  of  the  Turks  and  perhaps  of 
Europe  herself. 

Let  us  repeat,  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  accuse  us  of  "bleating  for 
peace  at  any  price,"  what  we  have  always  maintained: 

War  rather  than  slavery ; 

Arbitration  rather  than  war; 

Conciliation  rather  than  arbitration. 

I  hoped  that  this  collective  victory,  heretofore  considered  impossible,  of 
the  allies  over  Turkey, — which  had  just  concluded  peace  with  Italy  and  which 
we  still  believed  formidable, — would  free  Europe  from  the  nightmare  of  the 
Eastern  question  and  give  her  the  unhoped  for  example  of  the  union  and  co- 
ordination which  she  lacks. 

We  know  how  this  first  war,  after  having  exhausted,  as  it  seemed,  all  that 
the  belligerents  could  lavish,  in  one  way  or  another,  of  heroism  and  blood,  was 
only  the,  prelude  to  a  second  fratricidal  war  between  the  allies  of  the  previous 
day,  and  how  this  second  war  was  the  more  atrocious  of  the  two. 

Many  of  our  friends  urged  us  from  that  time  to  organize  a  mission,  charged 
either  to  intervene  or  to  become  a  witness  in  the  tragedy.  We  refused  to  au- 
thorize any  such  premature  manifestation,  which  could  only  be  unavailing.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  none  of  the  interested  governments  could  admit,  in  the  train 
of  their  armies,  spectators  who  were  independent  judges.  But  peace  at  last 


2  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 

accomplished,  our  caution  had  no  further  excuse.  Our  American  friends  under- 
stood this  when  they  asked  us  to  act,  and  we  have  not  hesitated  to  respond  to 
their  insistence.  The  Americans,  unlike  Europe,  do  not  approve  of  resignation, 
silence,  withdrawal.  They  are  young,  and  they  can  not  endure  an  evil  which  is 
not  proved  to  them  to  be  absolutely  incurable.  Not  the  slightest  doubt  can 
be  cast  upon  their  impartiality  in  regard  to  the  belligerents,  the  United  States 
being  the  adopted  country  of  important  rival  colonies,  notably  of  an  admirable 
Greek  colony.  For  my  part,  I  should  not  have  accepted  the  responsibility 
of  organizing  a  mission  of  whose  disinterestedness  and  justice  I  had  not 
been  fully  assured. 

I  love  Greece.  The  breath  of  her  war  of  independence  inspired  my  youth, 
I  am  steeped  in  the  heroic  memories  that  live  in  the  hearts  of  her  children, 
in  her  folk  songs,  in  her  language,  which  I  used  to  speak,  in  the  divine  air  of 
her  plains  and  mountains.  Along  her  coasts  every  port,  every  olive  wood  or 
group  of  laurels,  evokes  the  sacred  origin  of  our  civilization.  Greece  was  the 
starting  point  of  my  active  life  and  labor.1  She  is  for  the  European  and  the 
American  more  than  a  cradle,  a  temple  or  a  hearth,  which  each  of  us  dreams 
of  visiting  one  day  in  pilgrimage.  I  do  not  confine  myself  to  respecting  and 
cherishing  her  past.  I  believe  in  her  future,  in  her  eager,  almost  excessive, 
intelligence.  But  the  more  I  love  Greece,  the  more  do  I  feel  it  my  duty  in  the 
crisis  of  militarism  which  is  menacing  her  now  in  her  turn,  to  tell  the  truth 
and  to  serve  her  by  this,  as  I  serve  my  own  country,  while  so  many  others 
injure  her  by  flattery. 

I  presided  over  the  famous  Chateau  d'Eau  meeting  on  February  13,  1903, 
and  came  forward  as  a  politician  for  Bulgaria  and  all  the  oppressed  populations 
of  the  Balkan  peninsula.  That  was  a  .splendid  year  of  agitation  for  great 
causes,  for  justice,  liberty  and  peace;  it  was  the  unofficial  but  popular  begin- 
ning of  the  Anglo-French  entente  cordiale.  Generous  year  of  1903 !  My 
friends  and  I  responded  without  any  hesitation  to  the  noble  effort  of  growth  and 
progress,  of  the  material,  intellectual  and  moral  culture  of  Bulgaria. 

As  for  Servia,  whom  we  have  never  held  responsible  for  the  sufferings 
she  has  undergone,  I  count  among  her  diplomats,  more  than  colleagues,  friends, 
men  of  the  finest  character  who  have  impressed  themselves  upon  the  esteem 
of  the  political  personnel  (staff)  of  all  Europe. 

In  Montenegro,  where  my  duty  as  a  Member  of  the  International  Com- 
mission appointed  after  the  Berlin  Treaty  (1879-80),  took  me  formerly  to 
settle  the  boundaries  of  its  rugged  frontier,  I  knew  some  excellent  men.  I 
refrain  from  naming  them,  if  they  still  live,  for  fear  of  compromising  them, 
and  I  may  say  that  I  pitied  them  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  less  for  the 
heap  of  stones  out  of  which  fate  made  their  country,  than  for  the  govern- 
ment that  rules  the  stones.  When  European  disagreements  suspended  our 


1See  footnote,  page  3. 


INTRODUCTION  3 

labors,  I  profited  by  them  to  travel  in  solitude  through  High  Albania.  I 
crossed  the  sad  and  fertile  country  from  Scutari  to  Uskub,  allaying  the  suspicions 
of  Ypek,  of  Djyakoo  and  of  Prisrend,  then  in  full  anarchy.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  impression  of  sadness  and  astonishment  that  I  carried  away  from  this 
adventurous  expedition.  All  these  countries,  not  far  from  us,  were  then,  and 
are  still,  unlike  Europe,  more  widely  separated  from  her  than  Europe  from 
America;  no  one  knew  anything  of  them,  no  one  said  anything  about  them.  I 
scarcely  dared  at  this  epoch,  to  publish,  unsigned  as  a  matter  of  professional 
discretion,  a  sketch  of  the  ineffaceable  impressions  produced  on  me.1  And 
nevertheless,  all  this  horror  will  not  cease  to  exist  as  long  as  Europe  continues 
to  ignore  it.  These  peoples,  mingled  in  an  inextricable  confusion  of  languages 
and  religions,  of  antagonistic  race  and  nationality,  Turks,  Bulgarians,  Servians, 
Serbo-Croatians,  Servians  speaking  Albanian,  Koutzo-Valacks,  Greeks,  Alba- 
nians, Tziganes,  Jews,  Roumanians,  Hungarians,  Italians,  are  not  less  good  or  less 
gifted  than  other  people  in  Europe  and  America.  Those  who  seem  the  worst 
among  them  have  simply  lived  longer  in  slavery  or  destitution.  They  are 
martyrs  rather  than  culprits.  The  spectacle  of  destitute  childhood  in  a  civi- 
lized country  is  beginning  to  rouse  the  hardest  hearts.  What  shall  be  said  of 
the  destitution  of  a  whole  people,  of  several  nations,  in  Europe,  in  the  Twentieth 
Century  ? 

This  is  the  state  of  things  which  the  Americans  wish  to  help  in  ending. 
Let  them  be  thanked  and  honored  for  their  generous  initiative.  I  have  been 
appealing  to  it  for  a  long  time,  since  my  first  visit  to  the  United  States  in  1902. 
We  are  only  too  happy  today  to  combine  our  strength,  too  willing  to  raise 
with  them  a  cry  of  protestation  against  the  contempt  of  the  sceptics  and  ill- 
wishers  who  will  try  to  suppress  it. 

THE  OBJECTIONS 

We  have  noted  the  objections  that  have  been  presented  to  us,  and  the 
principal  ones  are  as  follows: 

How  is  the  Carnegie  Endowment  for  International  Peace  going  to  make  an 
investigation  into  the  atrocities  committed  in  the  Balkans?  Why  should  a 
Commission  interfere?  If  it  discover  that  the  atrocities  were  inevitable,  in- 
separable from  the  condition  of  war,  what  an  exposure  of  the  powerlessness 
of  civilization !  If  it  find,  as  certain  newspapers  proclaim,  that  the  evils  are 
to  be  imputed  to  some  and  not  to  others,  what  hatred  and  bitterness  will  be 


1Mach.  Recit  de  moeurs  de  la  Haute  Albanie  par  P.  H.  Constant.  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes,  1  mars  1881.  See  in  the  same  Revue  several  studies  on  Provincial  Life  in  Greece, 
and  under  this  same  title  a  volume  in  8°,  Hachette  1878,  id.  Dionitza  1878;  Galathee,  Ernest 
Leroux,  1  vol.  in  18  Paris  1878;  Pygmalion,  1  vol.  in  18;  A.  Lemerre,  Paris,  Les  Trois 
Sceurs,  text  from  a  popular  Greek  tale,  published  in  the  Annual  of  the  Association  for 
Greek  Studies;  id.  L'lle  de  Chypre  ;  Lettres  inedites  de  Coray;  Superstitions  of  Modern 
Greece,  Nineteenth  Century,  1880,  London. 


4  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 

re-awakened  between  the  scarcely  pacified  belligerents!  We  have  heard  this 
argument  for  thirty  years.  It  has  helped  the  evil  to  live  and  grow.  We  know 
what  we  must  think  about  the  results  of  European  abstention.  It  is  the  fear 
of  compromise,  the  fear  of  displeasing  one  or  another  of  the  nations,  the 
terror,  in  short,  of  intervening  reasonably  and  in  time,  which  has  brought 
about  a  crisis,  the  gravity  of  which  is  not  only  of  yesterday  and  of  today,  but 
also  of  tomorrow.  It  is  to  the  interest  of  all  the  governments,  as  well  as  of 
the  peoples,  that  the  light  of  truth  should  at  last  illuminate  and  regenerate 
these  unhappy  countries.  The  duty  and  the  purpose  of  the  Carnegie  Endow- 
ment was  to  contribute  in  dissipating  the  shadows  and  dangers  of  a  night  in- 
definitely prolonged. 

It  has  been  further  asked:  What  are  you  going  to  do  in  the  Balkans, 
you  French,  you  Americans,  you  English,  you  Russians,  you  Germans?  Have 
you  not  enough  to  do  with  Morocco  to  look  after,  with  Mexico,  with  South 
Africa,  India,  Persia?  Yes,  we  have  plenty  to  do  at  home,  but  let  us  give 
up  all  exterior  action  if  we  pretend  to  wait  until  everything  in  our  own  house 
or  conduct  is  reformed,  before  we  can  attempt  to  help  others.  I  do  not  consider 
the  French  State  more  perfect  than  any  other  human  organization,  but  never- 
theless my  own  imperfection  need  not  prevent  me  from  doing  my  utmost  to  be 
useful. 

Other  objections  are  of  a  less  elevated  order,  but  not  less  insistent.  This 
for  example:  that  everyone  does  not  lose  by  war.  Without  speaking  of  the 
patriotism  kept  alive  by  war,  the  Great  Powers  lend  their  money  to  the 
belligerents  and  sell  them  the  materials  of  war.  This  is  good  for  trade  and 
enriches  both  bankers  and  contractors.  War  is  exhibited  as  an  operation  of 
twofold  patriotism,  of  moral  benefit,  because  it  exalts  heroism,  and  of  material 
profit  because  it  increases  several  important  industries.  A  little  more,  and  we 
shall  be  told  that  it  nourishes  the  population! 

We  have  replied  to  these  sophisms  over  and  over  again.  Once  more  we 
shall  set  aside  the  war  that  is  defensive  and  in  the  cause  of  independence. 
Such  a  war  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  any  other,  because  it  is  the  resistance 
to  war,  to  conquest,  to  oppression.  It  is  the  supreme  protest  against  violence, 
and  generally  the  protest  of  the  weak  against  the  strong.  Such  was  the  first 
Balkan  war, — and  for  this  reason  it  was  glorious  and  popular  throughout  the 
civilized  world.  We  are  only  speaking  of  real  war,  such  as  a  State  under- 
takes in  order  to  extend  its  possessions,  or  to  assert  its  strength  to  the  detriment 
of  another  country; — this  was  the  case  in  the  second  Balkan  war.  Today  no 
one  gains  in  this  sort  of  warfare.  Both  victor  and  vanquished  lose  morally  and 
materially.  It  is  false  that  peace  encourages  slothfulness.  To  speak  only  of 
France  living  under  a  rule  of  peace  that  has  lasted  for  forty-three  years, 
never  has  youth  been  more  enterprising,  more  daring,  more  patriotic  than  in 
our  day.  In  default  of  a  war,  courage  applies  itself  to  fertile  invention,  towards 


INTRODUCTION  5 

exploration,  to  dangerous  scientific  experiments,  to  aerial  and  submarine  navi- 
gation. Is  this  a  sign  of  decadence? 

And  as  for  trade,  which  certainly  gains  by  selling  a  battleship  at  nearly 
a  hundred  million  francs,  is  it  possible  not  to  foresee  the  terrible  stoppage  of 
work  and  the  consequent  crisis,  that  must  ensue  when  the  peoples,  tired  of 
the  ruinous  competition,  will  claim  a  juster  balance  between  the  expenditure 
really  necessary  for  national  defense,  and  that  wanted  for  developing  the  re- 
sources of  each  country  and  its  useful  activity?  Nobody  will  contest  the  fact 
that  one  or  several  industries  do  certainly  profit  by  war.  It  will  even  be  read 
in  this  report  that  a  new  and  flourishing  kind  of  business  has  been  created  since 
the  two  Balkan  wars,  that  of  artificial  legs !  But  the  main  body  of  trade  ?  The 
main  body  of  the  people?  There  is  the  whole  question.  On  the  one  hand  the 
increase  of  armaments  leading  inevitably  to  catastrophe,  on  the  other  emulation, 
economic  competition  leading  to  progress,  always  insufficient  indeed,  but  better 
assured  each  day  by  general  cooperation,  and  finally,  to  security. 

Must  we  allow  these  two  Balkan  wars  to  pass,  without  at  least  trying 
to  draw  some  lesson  from  them,  without  knowing  whether  they  have  been  a  benefit 
or  an  evil,  if  they  should  begin  again  tomorrow  and  go  on  for  ever  extending? 

We  have  made  up  our  mind.  The  objections  that  we  have  summarized 
are  always  the  same,  not  one  of  them  holds  against  the  fact  that  the  two 
Balkan  wars,  different  as  each  was  from  the  other,  finally  sacrificed  treasures 
of  riches,  lives,  and  heroism.  We  can  not  authenticate  these  sacrifices  without 
protesting,  without  denouncing  their  cost  and  their  danger  for  the  future.  For 
this  reason,  I  constituted  our  Commission,  and  today  I  am  presenting  the  report 
which  it  has  drawn  up  in  truth,  independence  and  complete  disinterestedness. 

i 
CONSTITUTION  AND  CHARACTER  OF  THE  COMMISSION 

These  words,  truth,  independence  and  disinterestedness,  are  not  vain  words. 
Men  of  great  worth  and  of  the  sincerest  good  will,  have  been  ready  to  suspend 
the  occupations  of  their  ordinary  life,  in  order  to  respond  to  our  appeal,  and 
have  made  their  investigations  in  exceptional  conditions  of  impartiality  and 
authority,  and  with  untiring  courage.  They  did  not  allow  themselves  to  be 
baffled  by  fatigue  or  difficulties  of  any  kind,  numerous  as  these  were;  not 
even  by  cholera,  nor  were  they  led  astray  by  the  least  illusion.  Before  leaving 
Paris,  each  one  of  them  knew  that  owing  obedience  to  no  one,  to  no  word  of 
command,  to  no  party  or  government,  to  no  journal,  to  no  representation, 
Balkan  or  European;  expecting  no  decoration,  no  reward  of  any  sort,  neither 
thanks  nor  compliments;  coming  after  the  brilliant  scouts  of  the  great  press  of 
all  the  great  countries,  after  the  prejudiced  or  sensational  information  seekers ; 
serving,  in  a  word,  no  particular  interest,  but  a  very  general  interest;  that  they 
would  give  full  satisfaction  to  none,  and  would  displease  everybody  more  or 
less.  Each  one  of  them  deliberately  placed  himself  above  suspicion,  above 


6  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 

criticism,  truly  even  above  inevitable  attack.  It  would  be  impossible  to  question 
the  disinterestedness  of  the  Commission,  no  member  of  it  being  remunerated,  and 
the  expenses  of  travel, — very  modest  indeed, — being  publicly  administered.  But 
the  Commission  had  to  expect  that  objections  would  be  made  in  refusing  to 
acknowledge  or  in  disqualifying  some  of  its  members.  We  knew  all  that.  We 
took  our  precautions,  not  to  avoid  attacks,  merely  that  they  might  be  proved 
unjustifiable,  and  this  is  how  I  came  to  constitute  our  Commission.  An  un- 
grateful task,  for  which  I  have  felt  well  rewarded,  when  I  saw  our  work,  in 
spite  of  troublesome  presages  and  natural  enough  anxieties,  coming  none  the 
less  to  a  successful  issue. 

First,  I  consulted  the  men  in  Paris  whom  I  consider  to  be  masters  of  the 
question,  Victor  Berard  to  begin  with,  whose  experience  and  knowledge  are 
equal  to  his  devotion;  and  that  is  no  small  thing  to  say.  I  should  have  liked 
him  to  be  one  of  us,  and  I  have  in  any  case  to  thank  him  for  much  advice  of 
which  we  took  advantage.  I  would  also  have  liked  to  be  able  to  add  to  our 
number  our  admirable  and  regretted  F.  de  Pressense  and  those  of  our  valiant 
comrades  of  the  struggle  of  1903,  of  whom  I  have  spoken.  On  his  side,  our 
friend  President  Nicholas  Murray  Butler  is  surrounded  by  men  of  generous 
sympathy,  who  form  a  phalanx,  in  the  United  States,  of  combatants  always 
ready  for  the  crusades  of  our  own  day,  and  he  keeps  us  in  constant  touch 
with  their  views,  aspirations  and  opinions.  President  Butler's  collaborator, 
appointed  to  go  to  the  Balkans,  was  Mr.  Samuel  T.  Button,  Professor  at 
Columbia  University,  to  whose  impartiality  and  high  moral  integrity,  I  can  pay 
no  better  tribute  than  by  saying  that  he  was  not  only  a  valiant  fellow  worker 
but  an  arbiter  as  well.  I  could  say  the  same  of  Mr.  Justin  Godart,  Deputy 
of  Lyons,  a  politician  of  energy,  accuracy  and  determination,  whose  rectitude 
can  never  be  called  in  question  even  by  his  adversaries.  The  services  rendered 
us  by  Mr.  Godart  were  innumerable.  Aside  from  the  valuable  part  he  took, 
like  Mr.  Button,  in  drawing  up  the  report,  he  consented  during  the  long  journey 
through  the  Balkans  to  fulfil  many  other  functions  equivalent  to  those  of 
president  of  the  itinerary, — because  the  admirably  united  Commission  over  which 
I  presided  from  Paris,  had  not  thought  it  necessary  to  designate  a  vice  president 
during  its  journey, — secretary  general,  treasurer,  and  reporter.  Mr.  Godart 
was  all  this  and  more,  the  trusted  friend  in  whom  every  one  could  place 
reliance. 

Two  of  our  friends  in  Germany  responded  to  our  invitation,  Professor 
Paszkowski  of  Berlin  University,  and  Professor  Schiicking  of  Marburg,  both 
proved  and  excellent  men,  as  impartial  as  they  are  enlightened.  The  former, 
just  at  the  moment  of  his  departure,  was  unfortunately  refused  the  necessary 
permission  by  the  University  authorities.  The  latter  was  stopped  at  Belgrade, 
and  was,  I  am  bound  to  say,  totally  misled,  owing  to  circumstances  of  which  I 
will  add  a  word  or  two  later. 


INTRODUCTION  7 

• 

Austria  contributed  in  default  of  Professor  H.  Lammasch,  our  great  and 
generous  friend,  whose  health  kept  him  at  home,  Professor  Redlich,  whose 
cooperation  both  in  Vienna  and  Paris,  has  been  invaluable. 

Mr.  Francis  W.  Hirst  of  England,  editor  of  the  Economist,  well  known  for 
his  noble  campaigns  for  international  conciliation,  and  the  high  integrity  of 
his  character,  together  with  his  distinguished  colleague,  Mr.  H.  N.  Brailsford, 
was  constantly  present  at  our  preparatory  meetings  in  Paris.  Mr.  Brailsford 
was  appointed  with  Messrs.  Button,  Schiicking  and  Godart,  to  make  one  of  the 
subcommittee  which  we  decided  to  send  to  the  scene  of  war. 

From  Russia,  our  friend  Professor  Maxime  Kovalevsky  and  others  were 
unsparing  in  their  assistance.  They  were,  in  Europe,  as  Messrs.  Root  and 
Butler  in  the  United  States,  the  guarantors  of  the  independence  of  the  Com- 
mission. All  our  Russian  friends  were  of  the  same  opinion  as  ourselves  in 
considering  that  the  man  best  able  to  represent  them,  was  Professor  Paul 
Milioukov,  member  of  the  Douma,  who  gladly  responded  to  their  pressing  invi- 
tation, as  he  did  to  ours.  Professor  Milioukov  adds  to  his  political  authority, 
the  distinction  of  being  a  scholar  who  not  only  knows  the  Balkan  nations 
thoroughly,  but  their  languages  as  well.  He  has  been  reproached  for  this,  and 
so  has  Mr.  Brailsford.  Professor  Milioukov  was  at  once  denounced  as  being 
violently  hostile  to  the  Servians,  Brailsford  as  not  less  hostile  to  the  Greeks. 
It  is  true  that  by  way  of  balance  I  was  represented  as  an  impenitent  Philhellene, 
Hirst  as  a  Sectarian,  and  Kovalevsky  as  something  still  worse.  Godart  and 
Button  alone  escaped  all  criticism. 

I  am  aware  of  course  from  experience  that  in  the  Balkans  as  in  some 
other  countries,  that  I  know  of,  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  the  reproach  of  a  party, 
if  one  does  not  take  sides  with  it  against  the  others,  and  conversely.  Milioukov 
was  perfectly  just  to  the  Bulgarians  when  we  in  Europe  were  all  unanimous 
in  praising  and  upholding  them.  Later  on  he  blamed  them,  as  we  all  did.  He 
censured  the  fault  of  the  Servians  when  censure  was  unanimous,  as  he  denounced 
the  offenses  of  the  Turks  and  of  the  Greeks.  But  he  also  paid  sincere  tribute, 
to  their  merits,  as  he  did  to  the  merits  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Turks.  His 
only  sin,  in  the  eyes  of  each,  was  his  perfect  impartiality.  He  was  nobody's 
man,  precisely  what  we  were  looking  for.  Brailsford,  on  the  other  hand,  had 
been  frankly  partisan,  but  for  whom?  For  the  Greeks.  He  took  up  arms  for 
them  and  fought  in  their  ranks,  the  true  disciple  of  Lord  Byron  and  of  Glad- 
stone ;  and  in  spite  of  this  fact,  today  Brailsford  is  held  to  be  an  enemy  of 
Greece.  Why?  Because,  passionately  loving  and  admiring  the  Greeks,  he  has 
denounced  the  errors  that  bid  fair  to  injure  them,  with  all  the  heat  and  vigor 
of  a  friend  and  of  a  companion  in  arms.  This  did  not  seem  to  be  a  sufficient 
motive  for  demanding  his  resignation.  As  we  could  not  condemn  Brailsford  for 
being  at  one  and  the  same  time,  both  the  friend  and  the  enemy  of  Greece,  we 
kept  him,  and  have  been  very  fortunate  in  so  doing. 


8  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 

• 

At  last  our  Commission  was  constituted,  advised  on  all  points,  and  ready 
to  start  on  its  journey.  Before  its  departure,  I  notified  the  Turkish  Ambassador 
of  its  existence  and  of  its  purpose,  and  also  the  three  ministers  in  Paris  of 
Bulgaria,  Greece  and  Servia,  formerly  among  my  most  distinguished  colleagues. 
Only  the  Greek  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  at  the  beginning,  made  some  reser- 
vations to  which  I  replied,  concerning  the  choice  of  Brailsford,  accused  of  being 
a  Bulgarophile. 

Thus  prepared,  we  were  assured  that  our  inquiry,  even  if  it  did  not  please 
everyone,  could  not  be  regarded  with  suspicion,  nor,  in  any  case,  stopped  by 
anyone.  The  instructions  accepted  both  by  the  sedentary  members  of  the  Com- 
mission and  those  delegated  to  go  to  the  Balkans,  are  summarized  in  the  follow- 
ing extract  of  the  letter  I  wrote  August  21,  to  Mr.  Justin  Godart  and  his 
companions  : 


CREANS,  August  21, 
MY  DEAR  COLLEAGUES, 

*  *  *  Sceptics  will  ask  you  what  you  expect  to  do?  You  can  reply 
that  you  intend  to  obtain  some  light,  —  a  little  light,  —  and  this  will  be  much. 
A  little  light  means  appeasement  and  progress. 

Your  mission  has  as  much  economic  as  moral  significance.  When  you 
return  and  publish  your  opinions,  which  I  hope  will  be  unanimous  and 
which  will  certainly  have  the  greater  authority  in  that  they  are  exceptionally 
disinterested,  you  will  contribute  to  the  better  understanding  in  both  hemi- 
spheres, of  a  very  simple  truth.  That  is,  that  these  unhappy  Balkan  States 
have  been  up  to  the  present,  the  victims  of  European  division  much  more 
than  of  their  own  faults.  If  Europe  had  sincerely  wished  to  help  them  in 
the  past  thirty  years,  she  would  have  given  them  what  makes  the  life  in  a 
country,  that  is,  railways,  tramways,  roads,  telegraphs  and  telephones,  and 
in  addition,  schools.  Once  these  fertile  countries  were  linked  to  the  rest 
of  Europe,  and  connected  like  the  rest  of  Europe,  they  would  of  themselves 
become  peaceful  by  means  of  commerce  and  trade  and  industry,  enriching 
themselves  in  spite  of  their  inextricable  divisions. 

Europe  has  chosen  to  make  them  ruined  belligerents,  rather  than  young 
clients  of  civilization,  but  it  is  not  yet  too  late  to  repair  this  long  error. 
You  are  the  precursors  of  a  new  economic  order,  exceedingly  important 
for  each  one  of  the  governments;  you  will  be,  because  you  claim  no  such 
distinction  and  because  of  your  disinterestedness,  the  auxiliaries  of  their 
salvation.  After  having  verified  the  evil  which  is  only  too  evident,  you  will 
assist  each  government  in  repairing  it,  by  making  known  by  your  report 
the  real  aims  and  resources  of  the  country.  And  thus  you  will  reassure 
the  public  which  never  likes  to  despond,  and  which  will  not  admit  that 
even  a  small  part  of  Europe  must  lie  fallow,  when  it  can  share  the  general 
progress  which  is  going  on  feverishly  everywhere  else. 

I  hope  that  you  will  be  able  to  suggest  these  views  when  you  are. 
conversing  with  such  personages  as  you  have  occasion  to  meet.     It  is  to 
the  interest  of  each   government  that  prejudicial   legends   should   not   be 
spread  abroad.     You  will  be  able  to  confer  a  great  benefit  upon  each  of 
them. 


INTRODUCTION  y 

Our  Commission  will  upon  its  return,  publish  both  in  Europe  and  in 
America,  a  report  which  will  be  translated,  widely  circulated  and  com- 
mented upon.  This  report  will  contain,  not  the  recital,  but  the  confirmation 
and  correction  of  facts  already  published.  We  are  inclined  to  add  to  this 
a  brief  statement  of  the  situation,  drawn  up  by  those  specially  interested,  in 
regard  to  the  past,  the  present,  and  the  future. 

The  impartial  juxtaposition  of  these  diverse  statements  in  the  same 
international  document,  will  be  a  powerful  means  of  serving  the  truth  and 
of  disproving  the  accusation  of  injustice  on  our  part. 

Our  conclusions  will  then  follow,  and  these  conclusions  can  not  be 
anything  but  one  more  effort  to  reduce  the  disorders  from  which  all  the 
world  suffers,  and  to  establish  confidence  where  at  present  there  is  only 
discouragement  and  anxiety. 

DEPARTURE — INQUIRY — RETURN  OF  THE  COMMISSION 

The  Commission  left  Paris  on  August  2,  stopped  at  Vienna,  where  Pro- 
fessor Paszkowski  of  Berlin  and  Professor  Redlich  were  waiting  for  them,  and 
then  continued  on  to  Belgrade.  There  began  difficulties  which  need  not  be 
exaggerated.  The  Servian  government  could  have  taken  either  of  two  extreme 
courses.  The  first,  which  it  did  not  adopt,  consisted  in  itself  supplying  the 
Commission,  as  we  asked  it  to  do,  with  its  own  version  of  the  events,  and  at 
the  same  time  with  a  statement  of  the  economic  resources  of  its  country.  It 
knew  that  these  statements  would  be  published  fully  and  impartially  in  our  report. 
It  had  an  excellent  opportunity  by  so  doing,  of  confounding  its  enemies  and  of 
instructing  its  friends,  and  what  is  more,  of  making  Servia  known  to  the  world 
at  large.  I  must  confess  that  I  could  not  understand  its  rather  ungracious 
refusal,  which  we  may  call  diplomatic,  in  order  to  offend  no  one.  I  know  very 
well  the  reproaches  directed  against  Mr.  Milioukov;  but  Mr.  Milioukov  was  not 
the  whole  Commission.  They  had  the  right  to  decline  his  testimony.  That  of  the 
other  members  of  the  Commission  then  became  of  more  value;  it  constituted  a 
recourse.  To  speak  quite  fairly,  the  Commission  came  at  the  wrong  moment 
to  Belgrade;  but  I  wonder  if,  in  analogous  circumstances,  the  governments 
of  the  great  countries  would  not  be  more  summary  and  intolerant  than  the 
Servian  government.  The  matter  stood  thus:  The  Commission  arrived  at 
Belgrade  just  at  the  moment  of  the  triumphant  return  of  the  army,  a  triumph 
both  sad  and  glorious,  when  the  sight  of  the  line  of  victors  woke  in  the  silent 
crowds  as  much  sorrow  as  pride.  Servia's  great  losses  in  the  two  wars  must 
be  taken  into  consideration,  all  the  splendid  youth  and  strength  she  sacrificed  with 
unheard-of  courage,  the  blood  spilt  not  only  to  secure  independence,  but  in  a 
struggle  of  brother  against  brother,  a  struggle  where  victory  itself  means  mourn- 
ing. We  must  take  into  consideration  too,  there  as  elsewhere,  the  excitement 
of  frenzied  jingoist  journals. 

The  second  course  consisted  simply  in  stopping  our  Commission.  There 
were  both  pretexts  and  means :  transports  requisitioned  by  the  army,  interminable 


10  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN    COMMISSION 

delays,  the  uncertainty  of  communication,  the  bad  state  of  sanitation,  fear  of 
cholera.  *  *  *  In  the  interests  of  the  Commission  itself,  a  government, 
without  being  entirely  hostile  or  insincere,  could  have  obliged  it  to  retrace  its 
steps.  The  ministry  at  Belgrade  did  nothing  of  the  kind;  it  refused  to  communi- 
cate with  the  Commission  and  entirely  ignored  it,  although  its  arrival  had  been 
announced  both  from  Paris  and  upon  reaching  Belgrade,  to  the  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs.  An  official  communication  of  September  7,  explains  the  gov- 
ernment's attitude,1  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  did  not  prevent  the  Commission 
from  remaining,  in  spite  of  a  slight  animosity  provoked  by  some  of  the  news- 
papers against  Mr.  Milioukov,  nor  of  continuing  on  its  way.  The  Commission 
was  provided  by  the  government  with  every  facility  for  reaching  the  frontier 
and  Salonica.  This  was  a  good  deal  and  I  will  do  it  so  much  justice.  I  do 
not  consider  either  that  the  Servian  government  was  responsible  for  the  attempts 
which  were  made  to  prevent  our  German  colleague,  Professor  Schiicking,  from 
rejoining  the  Commission.  In  this  connection,  some  strange  maneuvers  took 
place.  Professor  Paszkowski,  being,  as  I  said,  detained  at  the  last  moment, 
Professor  Schiicking  was  named  hurriedly  to  take  his  place.  He  was  then  at 
Ostend,  from  whence  he  set  out  with  praiseworthy  dispatch  and  devotion,  but  he 
could  not  reach  Belgrade  until  some  time  after  the  Commission  had  already  left 
for  Salonica.  What  happened  then  ?  Who  is  to  be  blamed  ?  One  fact  emerges : 
Professor  Schiicking  was  persuaded  that  there  was  nothing  for  him  to  do  but 
go  home;  that  the  Commission  had  disbanded  and  had  given  up  its  work. 
Naturally  enough  Professor  Schiicking  returned  home,  and  only  heard  the  truth 
from  me  when  he  was  back  in  his  own  country. 

The  government  of  Greece  was  anxious  above  all  things  to  base  its  attitude 
on  that  of  its  ally  in  Belgrade.  The  Commission  was  therefore  welcomed 
under  the  strictest  reservations.  At  first,  Mr.  Dragoumis,  the  Governor  of 
Salonica,  informed  the  Commission  that,  following  the  example  of  Servia,  his 
government  declined  to  acknowledge  Mr.  Milioukov,  but  that  all  the  members  of 
the  Commission  should  have  entire  liberty  of  action.  Then  Mr.  Brailsford 
in  his  turn  and  even  more  directly,  was  refused ;  his  liberty  was  restricted  to  the 
point  of  twice  trying  to  prevent  him  from  going  to  Kilkich,  which  efforts  of 
the  authorities  met  with  the  congratulations  of  the  press. 

In  the  face  of  so  many  difficulties  from  the  very  beginning,  the  Commission 


1The  press  is  authorized  to  announce  that  the  Servian  government  declares  categorically 
that  it  has  never  been  hostile  to  an  investigation,  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  desires  the 
inquiry  of  an  impartial  commission  into  the  Bulgarian  cruelties  from  which  the  Servians 
and  the  Greeks  have  so  greatly  suffered.  It  is  entirely  to  the  interest  of  both  Greece  and 
Servia  that  the  civilized  world  should  know  of  the  Bulgarian  atrocities.  If  therefore,  the 
work  of  the  Commission  has  miscarried,  the  cause  must  be  sought  for  in  one  of  its  mem- 
t>ers,  the  declared  enemy  not  only  of  Servia  but  of  Greece,  well  known  for  what  he  has 
said  against  her,  not  only  in  speech  but  in  writing.  Moreover,  the  Commission  has  never 
made  itself  known  until  it  presented  itself  here.  No  country  could  tolerate  as  a  member 
of  a  Commission  a  man  whose  partiality  and  animosity  are  only  too  well  known. 


INTRODUCTION  11 

asked  itself  if  it  should  continue  its  work?  It  decided,  strong  in  its  independence 
and  good  faith,  with  the  entire  approbation  of  its  President,  not  to  discontinue, 
but  to  pursue  its  inquiry  by  all  its  means,  where  official  aid  failed  it.  The 
Commission  has  never  ceased  to  protest,  always  with  dignity,  against  the  accu- 
sations of  partisanship  made  against  two  of  its  members,  and  has  never  been 
divided  for  a  single  moment.  The  strength  of  its  unity,  so  often  and  so  roughly 
tested,  will  suffice  to  do  away  with  any  suspicion  against  its  impartiality.  Never 
for  an  instant  were  any  of  its  members  animated  by  the  least  desire  to  gather 
facts  for  prosecution  against  any  particular  people  or  State.  On  the  contrary, 
they  all  desired  to  report  nothing  but  the  truth.  They  tried  for  instance,  to 
get  the  replies  of  the  Greeks  and  Servians  to  the  accusations  of  the  Bulgarians. 
It  must  be  recalled  that  the  Greeks  welcomed  with  courtesy  and  kindness, 
the  member  of  the  Commission  who  was  sent  to  Athens,  while  the  others  remained 
in  and  about  Salonica.  Indeed  all  these  things  must  be  taken  into  serious  consider- 
ation, when  one  thinks  of  the  previous  passions  ruling  in  the  unhappy  country; 
of  the  daily  violence  exchanged  morning  and  night  between  the  papers;  of  the 
towns  reduced  to  ruins;  of  the  thousands  of  human  beings  wandering  without 
refuge  or  aim ;  of  the  death,  blood  and  crime  crying  everywhere  for  vengeance ; 
of  the  Te  Deums  rising  from  churches  whose  very  possession  was  disputed 
by  rival  fanaticisms. 

THE  REPORT 

In  spite  of  all,  the  Commission  did  not  abandon  its  voluntary  task,  impeded 
or  not.  It  was  not  stopped,  and  one  by  one  accomplished  the  different  steps 
of  the  journey,  from  Belgrade  to  Salonica,  to  Athens,  to  Constantinople,  to  Sofia, 
from  Servia  to  Greece,  to  Macedonia,  to  Turkey,  to  Thrace,  to  Bulgaria.  The 
investigation  required  five  weeks.  On  September  28,  it  returned  to  Paris, 
where  it  was  joined  by  the  other  members  who  had  given  their  authorization,  and 
here  they  planned  together  the  broad  lines  of  the  report  which  has  required 
nearly  a  year  to  draw  up,  translate  and  publish. 

The  preparation  and  publication  of  the  report  has  cost  more  time  and 
trouble  than  we  expected,  but  happily  what  might  have  been  a  difficulty,  complete 
harmony  between  all  the  members  of  the  Commission  proved  to  be  a  simple 
matter.  The  plan  of  the  work  once  set  on  foot, — the  historical  chapter  taking 
the  place  of  a  general  introduction, — each  of  the  members  who  had  personally 
taken  part  in  the  journey,  was  entrusted  according  to  his  special  ability  with 
one  or  two  chapters,  under  the  collective  responsibility  of  the  Commission. 
This  explains  why  no  chapter  is  signed  by  its  author,  the  Commission  continuing 
up  to  the  end  to  be  animated  by  the  same  spirit  of  unity  and  the  same  ambition 
for  truth.  Each  of  the  authors  and  the  office  of  the  Commission  revised  the 
proofs  sent  across  continents  at  the  cost  of  a  good  many  complications.  The 


12  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 

Commission  meeting  in  Paris  has  acted  as  a  reading  committee,  and  chosen  the 
pictures,  few  in  number,  to  be  published,  avoiding  as  much  as  possible, — though 
it  was  no  easy  matter, — a  vulgar  collection  of  horrors.  It  was  not  desirable, 
however,  to  eliminate  these  completely,  and  they  appear  in  the  report  as  speci- 
mens, often  incomplete,  of  the  illustrations  published  wholesale  by  the  news- 
papers. The  report  is  followed  by  an  appendix  which  the  Commission  would 
gladly  have  made  more  complete.  There  we  had  hoped  to  publish  the  official 
communications  and  protestations  of  the  Greek  and  Servian  governments,  as 
well  as  their  statistics  giving  the  numbers  of  the  killed,  wounded  and  lost,  and 
the  estimate  of  material  losses.  It  is  not  our  fault,  if  these  documents  do  not 
terminate  our  report,  but  in  default  of  governmental  information,  veracious  and 
verified  information  has  not  been  wanting,  as  will  be  seen.  The  execution  of 
the  maps  both  in  the  text  and  apart  from  it,  without  which  many  pages  of 
our  report  would  be  difficult  to  read,  was  carried  out  under  the  direction  of 
the  geographers,  Messrs.  Schrader  and  Aitoff.  The  editing  of  the  index  and 
the  typographical  correction  of  the  proofs  were  entrusted  to  the  personnel  of 
our  Paris  office.  The  main  divisions  of  the  report  forced  themselves  on  our 
plan :  first'  the  causes  of  the  two  wars ;  then  the  theater  of  operation ;  the 
actors  in  the  drama ;  the  medley  of  nationalities  engaged ;  the  inevitable  violation, 
or  rather  the  non-existence  of  an  international  law  in  the  anarchy  of  men  and 
of  things;  finally  the  economic  and  moral  consequences  of  the  two  wars,  and 
the  possible  prospects  for  the  future. 

Nothing  could  be  more  necessary  than  the  first  chapter  on  the  causes  of 
the  two  wars.  It  was  the  prelude  and  the  indispensable  statement  of  affairs, 
not  only  for  those  who  do  not  know  but  for  those  who  know  more  or  less  but 
who  forget.  If  our  report  contained  nothing  but  this  full  and  serious  expose, 
at  once  scholarly  and  equitable,  its  publication  would  be  amply  justified.  We 
recommend  those  of  our  readers  who  assert  that  some  of  our  members  are 
actuated  by  pro-Bulgar  sympathies,  to  read  the  pages  in  which  is  unfolded, 
from  the  conquest  of  the  Turks  and  their  taking  of  Constantinople,  the  fatality  of 
the  acts  which  led  to  the  two  last  wars,  among  these  acts,  the  outburst  of 
folly,  the  unbridled  militarism  against  the  popular  will.  We  draw  attention 
to  the  aberration  of  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Bulgar  army,  General  Savov, 
who  became  the  leader  of  a  military  party,  and  his  monstrous  outrage  which 
calls  everything  into  question,  makes  a  holy  war  into  a  butchery,  turns  the 
heroes  into  brutes,  who  in  short,  by  himself  and  in  spite  of  Europe,  precipitates 
the  second  war  and  its  unknown  tomorrows.  This  chapter  seemed  to  me  like  a 
mirror  faithfully  reflecting  a  mass  of  complications,  sometimes  discouraging  for 
the  historian  and  still  more  so  for  the  diplomat,  but  edifying  for  whoever 
attempts  to  protect  his  country  from  adventurers.  One  sees  clearly  in  it  the 
fundamental  distinction  which  we  never  cease  making,  between  the  war  of 
liberation  and  the  war  of  conquest,  between  patriotism  and  crime. 


INTRODUCTION  13 

The  second  chapter  is  both  painful  and  absorbing.  Here  we  shall  be  re- 
proached for  not  taking  sides.  Here  we  ought  to  have  said  to  each  of  the 
belligerents  following  the  example  of  their  press:  "All  the  wrong  is  on  the 
other  side.  The  glory  is  entirely  yours,  the  shame  belongs  only  to  the  others." 

There  is  to  be  seen  what  must  be  thought  of  these  official  classifications 
which  pretend,  in  this  horrible  confusion  where  "God  himself  would  not  recognize 
his  own,"  to  assemble  all  the  good  under  the  same  flag  and  all  the  bad  under 
another.  There  is  to  be  seen  how  the  war  kindled  by  intrigue,  begins  with 
the  generosity  of  youth,  to  terminate  without  distinction  of  race,  in  the  unloosing 
of  the  human  beast.  It  is  useless  to  dwell  upon  these  massacres  which  we 
can  not  pass  over  in  silence.  I  do  not  know  whether  an  ideal  war  has  ever 
existed,  but  it  is  time  that  the  world  should  know  what  war  really  means. 
All  the  poet-laureates,  the  ephemeral  glorifiers  of  these  infamies  whose  authors 
we  are  commanded  not  only  to  absolve  but  to  admire,  and  to  hold  up  as 
examples  to  our  children,  all  the  crowd  of  officious  writers  are  there  to  counter- 
balance our  report,  and  to  praise  what  we  are  determined  to  denounce  in  the  in- 
terests of  nations  which  require  to  be  enlightened  in  regard  to  themselves. 

Chapter  III  is  not  less  lamentable,  less  harrowing,  or  less  necessary,  just 
because  it  will  be  more  disagreeable  to  those  who  do  not  wish  the  truth  to  be 
known.  Here  the  Greeks  and  the  Bulgarians  are  no  longer  alone  on  the  scene, 
the  Turks  and  the  Servians  show  what  they  can  do.  Here  again,  the  Bulgarians 
are  not  spared  more  than  the  others;  but  the  others  have  their  share  too.  They 
will  protest,  they  will  reflect,  and  their  reflections  will  do  them  more  good  than 
lying  eulogy. 

Chapter  IV  again  holds  up  the  mirror  to  an  inextricable  situation  which 
must  nevertheless  be  understood.  Under  the  title  "The  War  and  the  Nation- 
alities," it  discloses  an  excess  of  horrors  that  we  can  scarcely  realize  in  our 
systematized  countries,  war  carried  on  not  only  by  armies  but  by  mobilized 
gangs,  and  in  reality  by  the  medley  of  nations;  local  populations  being  "divided 
into  as  many  fragments  as  there  are  nations  fighting  each  other  and  wanting  to 
substitute  one  for  another.  *  *  *  This  is  the  reason  why  so  much  blood 
was  spilt  in  these  wars.  The  worst  atrocities  were  not  due  to  the  regular  soldiers. 
*  *  *  The  populations  themselves  killed  each  other."  Whoever  wishes  to 
judge  of  the  evil  and  to  look  for  more  than  the  appearance  of  a  remedy  should 
meditate  over  this  fourth  chapter,  and  study  the  maps  before  forming  too 
severe  a  judgment  upon  these  competitions  of  horrors,  and  condemning  as 
culprits  peoples  who  turn  and  turn  about,  for  centuries  past  have  been  crushed 
down. 

Chapter  V,  "The  War  and  International  Law,"  is  not  less  impartial  than 
the  preceding.  Its  conclusion  is  this :  Every  clause  in  international  law  relative 
to  war  on  land  and  to  the  treatment  of  the  wounded,  has  been  violated  by  all 
the  belligerents,  including  the  Roumanian  army,  which  wras  not  properly  speak- 


14  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 

fif- 
ing belligerent.  Public  opinion  has  made  great  progress  on  this  question  of 
late  years.  I  confess  that  in  my  ardent  participation  in  the  two  Hague  Confer- 
ences, the  conventions  fixing  the  laws  and  customs  of  war,  interested  me  infi- 
nitely less  than  those  organizing  arbitration,  mediation  and  good  will,  which 
tended  in  fact  to  prevent  war,  and  not  to  humanize  it.  To  humanize  war  seemed 
to  me  then  a  hypocrisy  and  a  satire,  leading  to  its  being  too  easily  accepted, 
but  since  then  I  have  recognized  my  error.  War  is  not  declared  by  those  who 
carry  it  on.  The  armies  are  only  instruments  in  the  hands  of  the  governments ;  and 
these  armies  are  recruited  among  the  youth  of  each  country.  We  at  least  owe 
it  to  them  to  spare  them  sufferings  which  they  have  not  brought  upon  them- 
selves. To  refuse  to  humanize  war  for  fear  of  making  it  too  frequent,  is  to  let 
the  weight  of  the  governments'  fault  fall  upon  the  soldier.  In  short,  whatever 
amelioration  diplomatic  conferences  can  bring  about  in  the  horrors  of  war,  it 
could  never  be  enough.  The  torture  of  criminals  is  now  suppressed.  Should 
it  exist — and  what  torture! — for  soldiers  and  for  hostile  populations?  The 
Commission  has  done  its  duty  in  contending  that  in  spite  of  the  Hague  Conven- 
tions, the  cruelty  and  ferocity  and  the  worst  outrages  remained  in  the  Balkans 
as  the  direct  heritage  of  slavery  and  war. 

Chapter  V  suggests  as  a  subject  worthy  of  the  deliberations  of  the  Third 
Hague  Conference,  the  constitution  of  a  permanent  international  commission, 
named  in  advance,  and  empowered  in  case  of  war  to  go  and  observe  the  appli- 
cation of  its  resolutions  which  the  belligerents  themselves  have  signed.  This 
innovation,  precisely  because  it  would  have  too  much  reason  for  existence,  will 
run  a  great  risk  of  being  considered  indiscreet.  It  deserves  more  than  to  be 
passed  over  from  prejudice. 

We  shall  make  a  pause  at  Chapter  VI.  In  an  atmosphere  of  high  and 
serene  impartiality,  the  author  contemplates  the  economic  consequences  of  the 
war,  and  he  concludes  that  in  spite  of  appearances,  it  has  been,  apart  from 
evil  actions,  because  he  does  not  desire  to  injure  anyone,  a  bad  and  evil  thing 
for  every  one,  with  the  exception  of  course  of  the  contractors  who  supplied  the 
arms  and  ammunition,  and  the  makers  of  wooden  legs.  Greece  herself  who 
is  said  to  have  made  the  maximum  of  possible  gains,  with  the  minimum  of 
losses,  because  she  was  relatively  far  from  the  theater  of  war,  even  Greece 
has  seen  her  national  debt  doubled.  It  is  true  that  she  will  be  able  to  retrieve 
her  sacrifices  by  the  new  resources  which  she  will  draw  from  the  islands  and 
territories  that  are  now  part  of  her  domain,  but  this  is  just  where  the  question 
arises  for  her,  as  well  as  for  all  conquerors,  even  the  happiest :  Will  the  re- 
sources of  which  she  assures  herself,  suffice  to  meet  not  only  the  expenses  of 
the  land  improvement  which  her  statesmen  are  unquestionably  able  to  undertake, 
but  also  the  military  expenditure  corresponding  to  her  new  ambitions?  Here 
is  Greece  involved  more  deeply  than  she  expected  in  the  construction  of  arma- 
ments, competing  with  Italy,  exposed  in  her  turn  to  the  temptation,  to  the 


INTRODUCTION  15 

fascination  of  dreadnoughts.  For  this  hundreds  of  millions  of  capital  will  have 
to  be  borrowed,  taxes  imposed  to  pay  the  contributors,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
always  increasing  cost  of  maintenance  and  consequent  temptations,  because  a 
young  nation  whatever  the  wisdom  of  its  rulers  may  be,  will  not  easily  resign 
itself  to  let  its  armaments,  on  land  and  sea  become,  as  they  do,  old  fashioned  in 
a  very  few  years,  without  having  made  use  of  them;  it  will  not  let  its  men  of 
war  lie  at  anchor  and  its  soldiers  remain  idle  in  barracks.  What  will  happen 
then?  Greece,  the  beautiful,  will  in  her  turn,  be  torn  between  the  militarists  on 
the  one  side  who  proclaim  their  patriotism  at  every  opportunity  by  means  of 
their  journals  and  the  voices  of  their  impatient  orators,  and,  on  the  other  side, 
by  the  party  in  favor  of  industry,  of  progress,  seeing  itself  discredited  while  the 
sources  of  national  riches  are  drained,  and  social  revolt  is  engendered.  *  *  * 
Greece  is  now  going  to  discover  how  much  it  costs  to  abandon  herself  to  the 
luxury  of  dreadnoughts.  She  is  as  yet  only  at  the  beginning.  As  to  the  other 
allies,  and  the  Turks,  we  shall  refrain  from  insisting  upon  their  losses,  which  were 
very  much  greater  than  those  of  Greece,  or  upon  the  dangers  that  threaten  their 
future.  These  are  only  too  apparent. 

The  moral  consequences  of  the  Balkan  wars  are  briefly  indicated  in  the 
chapter  which  completes  the  report.  In  it  may  be  found  the  long  reverberation 
of  the  many  crimes  as  disastrous  for  their  authors  as  for  their  victims  and 
their  respective  countries.  We  are  shown  millions  of  human  beings  systemat- 
ically degraded  by  their  own  doing,  corrupted  by  their  own  violence.  It  gives 
us  a  good  example  of  the  evil  which  elsewhere  we  strive  to  denounce  and  to 
combat,  by  showing  us  how  the  generations  of  tomorrow  are  corrupted  by  the 
heritage  of  their  forefathers,  and  the  young  men  taken  from  the  necessary  and 
urgent  work  of  the  farm  and  the  workshop  to  be  placed  in  the  comparative 
idleness  of  barracks,  to  wait  for  the  next  war.  All  these  apprehensions  for  the 
future  are  expressed  without  the  slightest  trace  of  animosity  against  one  or 
other  of  these  unhappy  and  misguided  nations,  but  rather  with  a  feeling  of 
profound  sympathy  for  them  and  for  humanity.  The  conclusion  of  the  chapter 
evolves  itself  definitely:  violence  carries  its  own  punishment  with  it  and  some- 
thing very  different  from  armed  force  will  be  needed  to  establish  order  and 
peace  in  the  Balkans. 

THE  LESSON  OF  THE  Two  WARS 

Never  was  a  lesson  clearer  and  more  brutal.  United,  the  peoples  of  the 
Balkan  peninsula,  oppressed  for  so  long,  worked  miracles  that  a  mighty  but 
divided  Europe  could  not  even  conceive.  Crete,  Salonica,  Uskub,  even  Scutari 
and  Adrianople  they  took,  and  after  a  few  months  they  almost  entered  Constanti- 
nople. It  was  the  end,  the  Gordian  knot  was  cut.  Disunited,  they  were  forced 
to  come  to  a  standstill  and  to  exhaust  themselves  further  in  their  effort  to 
begin  again,  an  effort  indefinitely  prolonged.  For,  far  from  being  a  solution, 


16  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

the  second  war  was  only  the  beginning-  of  other  wars,  or  rather  of  a  continuous 
war,  the  worst  of  all,  a  war  of  religion,  of  reprisals,  of  race,  a  war  of  one 
people  against  another,  of  man  against  man  and  brother  against  brother.  It  has 
become  a  competition,  as  to  who  can  best  dispossess  and  "denationalize"  his 
neighbor.  The  Turks  in  any  case  remain  in  Europe.  The  hecatombs  of  the 
siege  of  Adrianople  have  been  in  vain ;  Macedonia,  no  longer  a  tomb,  has  become 
a  hell.  Thrace  is  torn  in  pieces.  Albania  erected  into  a  principality,  remains 
the  most  unhappy  and  the  wildest  object  of  the  eager  watching  of  Austria, 
Servia,  Montenegro,  Greece  and  Italy.  The  churches  and  the  Christian  schools 
are  fighting  among  themselves,  enjoying  less  liberty  than  under  Ottoman  rule. 
Constantinople,  more  than  ever,  will  be  the  eternal  apple  of  discord  under  the 
surveillance  of  the  Russians,  who  are  themselves  under  the  surveillance  of 
Germany,  Austria  Hungary  and  Roumania,  in  fact  of  all  the  Powers,  friends, 
allies  and  enemies.  Greater  Greece,  Greater  Bulgaria,  and  Greater  Servia,  the 
children  of  contemporary  megalomania,  will  in  their  turn  keep  a  close  watch 
over  the  Bosphorus.  The  islands  bring  on  a  contest  between  Turkey  and  Asia 
on  one  hand,  and  Italy,  Greece,  England  and  all  the  great  European  Powers  on 
the  other.  The  Mediterranean  open  to  new  rivalries,  becomes  again  the  battle- 
field which  she  had  ceased  to  be. 

A  dark  prospect,  which  however,  might  become  brighter  if  Europe  and  the 
great  military  Powers  so  wished.  They  could,  in  spite  of  everything,  solve  the 
problem  if  they  were  not  determined  to  remain  blind. 

The  real  struggle  in  the  Balkans,  as  in  Europe  and  America,  is  not  between 
oppressors  and  oppressed.  It  is  between  two  policies,  the  policy  of  armaments 
and  that  of  progress.  One  day  the  force  of  progress  triumphs,  but  the  next 
the  policy  of  rousing  the  passions  and  jealousies  that  lead  to  armaments  and  to 
war,  gets  the  upper  hand. 

With  the  second  Balkan  war,  the  policy  of  armaments  spreads  more  strongly 
than  ever.  After  having  been  the  resource  of  European  governments,  it  is 
about  to  become  their  punishment. 

A  paradoxical  situation!  The  competition  of  armaments  could  not  go  on 
indefinitely,  at  this  time  of  open  economic  competition  between  all  the  peoples 
of  the  Old  World  and  the  New.  Already  by  reason  of  the  increase  of  our 
budgets,  and  in  spite  of  desperate  efforts,  it  is  losing  prestige  in  popular  opinion. 
It  is  being  questioned,  and  consequently  condemned.  The  extravagance  of 
armaments  appears  like  the  development  of  a  monstrous  business,  incompatible 
with  national  work.  In  spite  of  all  the  workmen  that  it  employs,  the  salaries  it 
pays,  the  auxiliary  activities  it  supports,  the  war  trade  only  flourishes  by  uni- 
versal insecurity,  lives  only  upon  the  increase  of  public  expense,  by  all  of  which 
the  normal  business  of  all  countries  suffers.  Under  this  regime  of  armed  peace, 
only  the  little  countries  or  the  new  countries  are  favored,  those  which  have  no 
debts,  no  immense  war  budgets. 


INTRODUCTION  17 

What  finally  succeeds  in  bringing  armed  peace  into  disrepute,  is  that  today 
the  Great  Powers  are  manifestly  unwilling  to  make  war.  Each  one  of  them, 
Germany,  England,  France  and  the  United  States,  to  name  a  few,  has  dis- 
covered the  obvious  truth  that  the  richest  country  has  the  most  to  lose  by  war, 
and  each  country  wishes  for  peace  above  all  things.  This  is  so  true  that  these 
two  Balkan  wars  have  wrought  us  a  new  miracle, — we  must  not  forget  it, — 
namely,  the  active  and  sincere  agreement  of  the  Great  Powers  who,  changing 
their  tactics,  have  done  everything  to  localize  the  hostilities  in  the  Balkans  and 
have  become  the  defenders  of  the  peace  that  they  themselves  threatened  thirty- 
five  years  ago,  at  the  time  of  the  Berlin  Congress.  We  might  be  tempted  to 
attribute  this  evolution  of  public  opinion  and  that  of  the  governments  in  part 
to  the  new  education  which  we  are  striving  to  spread,  but  let  us  stick  to  facts: 
The  exigencies  of  the  universal  competition,  the  increased  means  of  communi- 
cation, the  protest  of  tax  payers,  and  the  dread  of  socialism  and  of  the  un- 
known, have  been  more  efficacious  in  forcing  the  governments  to  think  than 
any  exhortations. 

If  this  is  so,  why  not  end  it?  That  is  the  dream,  but  how  to  realize  it?" 
Every  one  ignores  it.  A  large  body  of  persons,  possessing  immense  capital, 
is  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  armaments ;  more  still,  a  formidable  plant 
which  must  be  sunk  has  been  created  and  continues  to  be  created  every  day.  Is 
there  anyone  who  will  ignore  this  accumulation  of  strength  and  of  riches? 
Who  will  be  able  to  stop  short  this  impulse?  True,  the  home  market  is 
overstocked  in  every  country  with  orders  for  armaments.  Neither  the  jingo 
papers  nor  those  in  the  hands  of  the  federation  of  military  contractors,  who  are 
so  admirably  organized  into  national  and  international  syndicates,  can  urge 
indefinitely  for  a  national  consummation.  There  comes  a  time  when  public  opinion 
refuses  to  submit  any  longer  to  this  so-called  patriotic  regime ;  and  the  war  trade, 
inspired  with  new  ambition,  turns  its  attention  towards  exportation.  As  the 
home  market  is  not  sufficient,  a  foreign  market  is  created.  The  war  trade 
believes  that  the  foreign  policy  of  a  great  nation  is  first  and  foremost  the  policy 
of  armaments.  The  main  duty  of  diplomacy  according  to  it,  is  the  struggle  as 
to  who  shall  carry  off  from  a  great  rival  nation,  such  and  such  a  contract  for 
guns,  cannon  or  ironclads,  and  who  shall  subordinate  political  interventions  or 
loans  of  money  to  army  contracts. 

The  struggles  become  Homeric  conflicts  of  influence  and  intrigue.  Ambassa- 
dors can  not  disregard  them  without  a  kind  of  abdication.  Has  not  even  the 
Emperor  of  a  great  neighboring  country  made  it  a  point  of  honor  to  militarize 
Turkey? — without  any  great  success  it  is  true.  But  what  of  Turkey  or  the 
colonies  or  the  small  states  of  few  resources?  An  effort  has  been  made  to- 
militarize  North  and  South  America,  and  Australia  as  well.  Canada,  whose 
future  lies  precisely  in  her  exemption  from  all  military  burdens,  has  been  forced 
to  order  a  fleet  from  England,  and  to  extract  from  a  population  still  insufficient,. 


18  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 

the  elements  of  a  navy  which  they  have  done  very  well  without  for  a  hundred 
years!  Australia  has  not  hesitated.  Brazil,  the  Argentine,  Chile  and  the  other 
republics  of  South  America  did  resist,  thus  giving  Europe  an  example  of  peace- 
ful cooperation ;  but  now  their  former  good  sense  has  been  overcome  by  attempts 
of  all  sorts  continually  repeated.  Commercial  travelers  in  patriotism  have 
hurried  from  every  corner  of  Europe  to  demonstrate  the  necessity  for  ordering 
the  biggest  battleships  possible.  We  may  recall  the  extraordinary  experience 
of  Brazil,  the  first  dupe  of  these  campaigns,  when  her  great  "Armada"  arrived 
from  the  English  ship  yards  and  she  saw  it  make  its  first  attempt  to  cannonade 
Rio  de  Janeiro !  It  was  the  beginning  of  disillusion,  the  mastodon  killed  by 
ridicule.  Since  then,  the  propaganda  of  armaments  has  declined,  even  in  the 
United  States,  where,  however,  the  yellow  press,  typical  of  its  kind,  has  given 
its  proofs  and  is  agitating  the  matter  again,  thanks  to  the  providential  events  in 
Mexico.  In  the  last  few  years,  the  House  of  Representatives  at  Washington 
has  refused  to  vote  more  than  one  ironclad  against  two.  In  Germany,  the 
Krupp  case,  the  Saverne  events,  and  many  other  incidents,  without  speaking  of 
the  Berne  Conference,  have  been  the  answer  to  the  furious  excitement  of  the  pan- 
Germanic  press.  In  Japan  itself  there  has  just  burst  the  unprecedented  scandal 
of  the  naval  contracts. 

Russia  nevertheless,  happily  for  the  great  war  trade,  forgets  how  much 
the  disasters  of  her  navy  have  cost,  and  once  more  has  allowed  herself  to  be 
imposed  upon.  Austria  has  capitulated  too,  even  Spain  asks  nothing  better 
than  to  be  persuaded,  inasmuch  as  she  can  afford  it.  But  on  the  whole  the 
enthusiasm  was  cooling  when  the  practice  of  the  new  Balkan  States  came  to 
renew  it.  The  acclamations  of  the  jingo  press  of  all  countries  greeted  these 
fortunate  countries,  new  centers  for  imports. 

Even  the  battleships  with  which  Brazil  and  the  Argentine  are  disgusted,  are 
being  handed  over  to  Turkey  and  Greece.  Constantinople  will  become  a  vast 
arsenal  and  a  naval  port,  worthy  of  her  name  and  her  past.  The  Greek  fleet 
will  oblige  Italy,  whose  ardor  was  declining,  to  increase  her  navy  as  well ; 
and  following  this  example,  the  great  countries  of  Europe  and  America  will  not 
remain  unaffected.  The  naval  leagues  will  agitate,  the  embassies  will  report 
these  imposing  manifestations,  by  sending  confidential  despatches,  communicated 
as  soon  as  received  to  the  leading  papers.  Patriotic  speakers,  in  print  and  on  the 
platform,  will  inveigh  against  the  "lie  of  pacifism,"  and  so  the  prediction  of  the 
Americans  that  "the  next  war  will  be  declared  by  the  press,"  will  be  realized. 

Then  the  Greeks,  the  Turks,  the  Servians,  the  Bulgarians,  the  Montenegrins 
and  the  Albanians,  armed  to  the  teeth,  provided  with  all  the  guns  and  all  the 
dreadnoughts  for  which  we  have  no  further  use,  can  kill  each  other  once  more, 
and  even  drag  into  their  quarrel  the  European  governments,  who  will  be  as  they 
themselves  are,  victims  of  the  press  and  commercial  patriotism,  or  in  other 
words,  of  the  policy  of  armaments. 

Confronted  by  these  follies  or  these  crimes, — the  word  matters  little, — our 


INTRODUCTION  19 

sole  resource  while  waiting  for  the  day  when  we  shall  see  the  rise  of  an  inde- 
pendent press,  is  our  duty  of  speaking  the  truth  which  even  the  most  sensible 
people  hesitate  to  admit,  for  fear  of  compromising  themselves. 

In  one  of  the  speeches  that  I  made  in  the  Senate  to  free  my  conscience, 
before  an  audience  sympathetic  at  heart,  but  fully  determined  not  to  support 
me,  I  calculated  that  France  has  imposed  upon  herself  more  than  a  hundred 
billion  francs  in  unproductive  expenditure  during  the  last  forty-three  years,  an 
average  of  more  than  two  billion  francs  a  year.  This  is  the  minimum  price  of 
armed  peace  for  one  country  only.  Several  hundreds  of  billions  in  a  half  cen- 
tury for  the  Great  Powers  together ! ! 

Think  what  United  Europe  might  have  done  with  these  millions,  had  she 
consecrated  even  half  to  the  service  of  progress !  Imagine  Europe  herself, 
not  to  speak  of  Africa  and  Asia,  penetrated  and  regenerated  by  the  pure  air,  in 
its  most  distant  parts,  of  free  intercourse,  of  education  and  security.  Can  we 
picture  what  might  have  been  the  position  today  of  these  unfortunate  Balkan 
peoples,  if  their  patrons,  the  Great  Powers  of  Europe,  had  competed  with  each 
other  in  aiding  them,  in  giving  them  roads,  and  railways,  and  waterways,  schools, 
laboratories,  museums,  hospitals  and  public  works ! 

The  most  suitable  title  for  this  report  would  have  been,  "Europe  Divided 
and  her  Demoralizing  Action  in  the  Balkans,"  but  taking  it  all  round  this  might 
have  been  unjust. 

The  real  culprits  in  this  long  list  of  executions,  assassinations,  drownings, 
burnings,  massacres  and  atrocities  furnished  by  our  report,  are  not,  we  repeat, 
the  Balkan  peoples.  Here  pity  must  conquer  indignation.  Do  not  let  us  con- 
demn the  victims.  Nor  are  the  European  governments  the  real  culprits.  They 
at  least  tried  to  amend  things  and  certainly  they  wished  for  peace  without 
knowing  how  to  establish  it.  The  true  culprits  are  those  who  mislead  public 
opinion  and  take  advantage  of  the  people's  ignorance  to  raise  disquieting  rumors 
and  sound  the  alarm  bell,  inciting  their  country  and  consequently  other  countries 
into  enmity.  The  real  culprits  are  those  who  by  interest  or  inclination,  declaring 
constantly  that  war  is  inevitable,  end  by  making  it  so,  asserting  that  they  are 
powerless  to  prevent  it.  The  real  culprits  are  those  who  sacrifice  the  general 
interest  to  their  own  personal  interest  which  they  so  little  understand,  and  who 
hold  up  to  their  country  a  sterile  policy  of  conflict  and  reprisals.  In  reality 
there  is  no  salvation,  no  way  out  either  for  small  states  or  for  great  countries 
except  by  union  and  conciliation. 

D'ESTOURNELLES  DE  CONSTANT. 


CHAPTER     I 

The  Origin  of  the  Two  Balkan  Wars 
1.     THE  ETHNOGRAPHY  AND  NATIONAL  ASPIRATIONS  OF  THE  BALKANS 

It  is  not  proposed  in  this  chapter  to  enter  exhaustively  into  a  question  on 
which  there  is  a  highly  abundant  literature  already  in  existence,  both  in  the  va- 
rious European  and  Balkan  languages.  The  intention  is  simply  to  furnish  the 
data  indispensable  to  the  reader  who  is  interested  in  the  work  done  by  the  Com- 
mission, though  unfamiliar  with  the  details  of  the  questions  at  issue  in  the  Balkan 
peninsula.  Every  page  of  the  Report  handles  such  a  mass  of  ideas,  facts  and 
dates,  which,  though  supposed  to  be  generally  known,  are  in  fact  not  so,  that  it 
seemed  impossible  to  plunge  the  reader  at  once  in  medias  res.  Those  more  famil- 
iar with  things  in  the  East  may  begin  the  Report  at  the  next  Chapter. 

The  actual  course  of  events  in  the  Balkans  is  a  very  close  reproduction  of  the 
conditions  existing  previous  to  the  arrival  of  the  Turks  in  Europe.  Then,  as 
now,  the  Christian  States  were  engaged  in  constant  internecine  strife  for  hege- 
mony in  the  peninsula.  Victory  both  in  the  tenth  and  again  in  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury was  with  the  Bulgarian  State,  which  though  still  primitive  in  organization, 
owed  its  temporary  ascendancy  to  the  conquests  of  a  military  chief. 

Then  in  the  twelfth  and  fourteenth  centuries  came  the  turn  of  the  conquering 
Servians.  Intermittently,  the  Byzantine  Emperors  recovered  their  preponder- 
ance in  the  peninsula.  The  various  peoples  who  had  occupied  the  different  re- 
gions from  the  third  to  the  sixth  century,  A.  D.  (the  indigenous  population,  Greek, 
Albanian,  or  Roumanian  having  been  either  driven  out  or  assimilated)  served  only 
to  swell  the  armies  or  figure  in  the  imposing  titles  assumed  by  the  autocrats  of 
all  these,  Servians,  Greeks,  Bulgarians,  Albanians,  conjoined  in  a  sort  of  Imperial 
organization,  a  "Great  Servia"  or  "Great  Bulgaria."  The  collapse  of  these  ephem- 
eral "Great"  States  produced  no  change  in  the  ethnographic  composition  of  the 
peninsula.  Political  structures  fell  and  rose  again  without  any  attempt  being  made 
to  fuse  the  populations  into  any  sort  of  national  whole.  At  that  stage  indeed 
the  national  idea  was  not  as  now  closely  connected  with  the  State  idea.  The 
Bulgar,  the  Servian,  the  Wallachian,  the  Albanian  remained  Bulgarian,  Servian, 
Wallachian  or  Albanian,  throughout  all  the  successive  regimes;  and  thus  the 
ancient  ethnographic  composition  remained  unaltered  until  the  Turkish  conquest 
came,  leveling  all  the  nationalities  and  preserving  them  all  alike  in  a  condition  of 
torpor,  in  a  manner  comparable  to  the  action  of  a  vast  refrigerator. 

Even  if  the  political  constructions  which  followed  one  another  and  which 
were  actually  in  conflict  with  one  another  at  the  advent  of  the  Turks,  had  con- 


22  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 

tained  in  them  the  germs  of  nationalities,  the  Turkish  regime  would  have  ruth- 
lessly stamped  them  out.  The  Turks  unconsciously  worked  for  their  destruction 
in  the  most  effective  possible  way.  They  banished  or  assimilated  the  ruling  class, 
that  is  to  say  the  warrior  class,  in  the  conquered  countries.  In  the  communes 
there  remained  no  one  but  the  village  agriculturists,  whose  only  ethical  bond  was 
that  of  religion.  Here  again  the  Turkish  regime  did  much  to  reduce  the  ethnic 
and  national  significance  of  the  religious  element  to  its  lowest  terms.  The  re- 
ligion of  all  the  conquered  nationalities  being  the  same,  i.  e.,  Oriental  orthodoxy, 
the  Turks  ended  by  recognizing  only  one  clergy  as  representative  of  the  rayas 
(creeds),  the  one  chosen  being  the  Greek  clergy,  the  most  cultivated  and  in  the 
capital  (Constantinople)  the  most  prominent.  The  Phanar  (the  Greek  quarter 
of  Constantinople  in  which  the  Greek  patriarchate  is  situated),  finally  became  the 
sole  orthodox  church  in  Turkey ;  the  last  remains  of  the  national  autonomous 
churches  which  still  existed  at  Okhrida  (for  the  Bulgarians)  and  at  Ipek  (for 
the  Servians)  being  abolished  by  the  decrees  of  the  Greek  patriarchate  of  1765 
and  1767  respectively.  Consequently,  a  common  race  name  was  given  to  the 
orthodox  populations  in  the  official  language  of  the  Turkish  bureaucracy :  they 
were  all  "Roum-mileti"  from  the  name,  Romaics,  of  the  Greek  people.  (This  is 
the  name  the  modern  Greeks  gave  themselves  down  to  recent  times.) 

Nevertheless,  although  the  people  were  thus  merged  and  submerged,  na- 
tional consciousness  was  not  completely  obliterated.  There  was  always  a  certain 
discontent  between  the  pastors  and  their  flocks.  The  latter  could  not  forget  that 
they  had  formerly  heard  mass  celebrated  in  their  national  language  by  a  priest 
whom  they  chose  themselves  and  whose  interests  were  not  limited  to  taxes  and 
state  service.  The  Greek  priest,  on  his  side,  was  expatriated  in  the  midst  of  a 
Slav  population ;  it  was  humiliating  for  a  lover  of  the  muses  to  dwell  in  a  barba- 
rian world,  in  the  midst  of  "wearers  of  sheep  skins."  The  conditions  being  sor 
any  favorable  circumstance,  any  spark  from  outside,  would  be  enough  to  re-light 
the  flame  of  nationality. 

It  is  impossible  in  this  too  brief  sketch  to  follow  in  detail  the  course  of  the 
re-awakening  of  the  national  idea  in  the  Balkans.  It  goes  back  to  the  earliest 
days  of  the  Turkish  conquest.  The  Servians  and  Roumanians,  the  last  to  be  sub- 
dued by  the  Turks,  were  the  first  to  claim  their  autonomy.  What  especially 
favored  the  development  of  national  consciousness  among  the  Servians  was  the 
large  proportion  of  their  race  which  had  remained  outside  the  Ottoman  conquest. 
Even  apart  from  the  Servians  on  the  Adriatic,  who  had  been  open  to  the  influences 
of  Italian  literature  since  the  sixteenth  century,  those  in  Austria  Hungary  had 
tasted  European  civilization  long  before  the  Servians  in  Turkey.  Ragusa  first, 
and  afterwards  Agram  (in  Slav  "Zagreb"}  were  intellectual  centers  of  the 
Servian  nation  before  Belgrade. 

In  Servia  proper  the  struggle  for  independence  preceded  the  intellectual  de- 
velopment of  the  nation.  While  our  Commission  was  in  Belgrade  a  monument 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS 

was  erected,  in  honor  of  the  first  liberator  of  Servia,  the  founder  of  the  present 
dynasty,  Kara-Georges,  who  more  than  a  century  ago  (1804)  organized  the  first 
resistance  offered  by  the  people  to  its  Turkish  masters.  In  the  year  1813  the  first 
insurrection  was  defeated :  Kara-Georges  fled  to  Austria,  and  was  killed  in  1817. 
But  a  new  leader  had  already  appeared  in  the  person  of  the  founder  of  the  sec- 
ond Servian  dynasty, — recently  extinguished  with  Alexander  and  Draga,  namely 
Michel  Obrenovits,  the  son  of  a  peasant,  like  Kara-Georges.  The  second 
insurrection,  with  Michel  at  its  head,  was  more  successful  than  the  first.  The 
convention  of  Akkerman  (1826)  secured  Servia  a  sort  of  autonomy  under  Rus- 
sian protectorate,  and  the  Hatticherif  of  1829  confirmed  and  completed  the  act  by 
making  Servia  a  hereditary  principality  under  the  Sultan's  suzerainty.  A  year 
later  another  Hatticherif  gave  the  Servians  the  right  to  establish  primary  schools ; 
and  by  1836  there  were  seventy-two  of  these  in  the  principality. 

Greece,  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  peninsula,  had  closely  followed  Servia's 
example.  There,  too,  effort  at  national  revival  outside  the  country  went  on  con- 
temporaneously with  the  endeavors  at  revolt  on  which  the  wild  mountaineers  ven- 
tured from  time  to  time.  These  mountaineers  are  known  by  the  picturesque 
appellation  of  "thieves"  (Klephtai,  patriotic  thieves,  in  distinction  to  lestai, 
brigands  pure  and  simple). 

The  liberty  of  Greece  proclaimed  by  the  national  assembly  at  Epidaurus  was 
not  recognized  until  the  Act  of  February  3,  1830.  Then  the  bases  of  national  civ- 
ilization asserted  since  1814  by  members  of  the  Philiki  Heteria  were  formally 
laid  down.  We  have  already  seen  that  thanks  to  the  energy  of  the  Phanar  clergy, 
the  Greek  schools  had  maintained  not  existence  merely  but  vitality,  despite  the 
Turkish  rule,  and  sent  out  generations  of  educated  Greeks. 

This  was  not  the  fate  of  the  countries  in  the  interior — Bulgaria  and  Mace- 
donia. It  is  true  that  the  first  indications  of  national  consciousness  appeared 
early,  in  the  course  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Down  to  1840  they  went  on  spread- 
ing in  proportion  to  the  increasing  influence  of  foreign  civilization  (in  the  present 
case,  of  Russian  civilization).  It  was  not  until  1852,  however,  that  the  first  na- 
tional Bulgarian  school  appeared,  at  Tirnovo.  At  the  close  of  this  period  a  move- 
ment, in  the  direction  of  religious  independence  made  itself  felt.  From  1860  on, 
a  most  bitter  conflict  broke  out  between  the  heads  of  the  Bulgarian  community 
at  Constantinople  and  the  Greek  patriarchate,  religion  and  nationality  being  iden- 
tified on  either  side.  Since  Greek  nationalism  constituted  a  political  danger  for 
Turkey,  while  the  Bulgarians  had  as  yet  formulated  no  political  claim,  their  chiefs 
rather  piquing  themselves  on  their  loyalty  towards  the  Sultan,  the  Turkish  authori- 
ties began  to  take  sides  against  the  Greeks  in  this  national  strife,  and  finally  con- 
ceded to  the  Bulgarians  the  establishment  of  a  national  church  subject  to  purely 
formal  recognition  of  the  patriarchal  supremacy.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the 
Bulgarian  exarchy,  officially  recognized  by  the  Firman  of  1870. 

The  Greeks,  however,  would  not  admit  their  defeat.    The  patriarch  refused 


24  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 

'to  accept  the  firman.  The  Bulgarians,  supported  by  the  Turks,  retorted  by  electing 
their  first  exarch  and  making  formal  proclamation  (May  11,  1872)  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  their  church.  Thereupon  the  patriarch,  four  months  later,  excommu- 
nicated the  new  church  and  declared  it  schismatic.  This  too  hasty  step  served  only 
to  assist  the  Bulgarian  cause.  The  Bulgarians  having  now  secured  what  they 
desired,  i.  e.,  a  church  wholly  independent  of  the  Greeks  and  thoroughly  national, 
both  in  its  head  and  its  members,  proceeded  to  fix  the  dioceses  of  the  new  church. 
Some  of  these  dioceses  were  actually  enumerated  in  the  firman:  the  exarchies 
of  Bulgaria  today;  others,  which  were  also  to  form  part  of  the  national  church, 
were  in  accordance  with  Article  10  of  the  firman  to  be  fixed  by  a  vote  of  the  popu- 
lation.1 Accordingly  the  exarchate  took  a  plebiscite,  as  laid  down  in  Article  11, 
beginning  with  the  provinces  of  Uskub  and  Okhrida.  Since  a  more  than  two- 
thirds  majority  there  declared  against  the  Patriarch  the  Porte  gave  its  berat 
(investiture)  to  the  Bulgarian  Bishops  of  Uskub  and  Okhrida. 

But  Okhrida  and  Uskub  are  Macedonian.  The  question  of  Macedonia  had 
thus  definitely  arisen.  It  is  true  that  before  1873  the  Greeks  had  already  con- 
tended for  this  region  with  the  Slavs.  But  it  had  not  yet  occurred  to  the  Slavs 
(Servians  and  Bulgarians)  to  dispute  about  it  among  themselves.  The  young 
radicals  in  Servia  and  Bulgaria  who  between  1860  and  1870  disseminated  the  no- 
tion of  a  Southern  Slav  Federation,  accepted  the  proposition  that  the  populations 
of  Thrace  and  Macedonia  were  as  Bulgarian  as  those  of  Bulgaria,  as  a  settled  fact, 
traditionally  established.  The  Bulgarian  publicist,  Liouben  Karavelov,  wrote  the 
following  in  1869-70: 

The  Greeks  show  no  interest  in  knowing  what  kind  of  people  live  in 
such  a  country  as  Macedonia.  It  is  true  that  they  say  that  the  country  for- 
merly belonged  to  the  Greeks  and  therefore  ought  to  belong  to  them  again 
*  *  *  But  we  are  in  the  nineteenth  century  and  historical  and  canonical 
rights  have  lost  all  significance.  Every  people,  like  every  individual,  ought  to 
be  free  and  every  nation  has  the  right  to  live  for  itself.  Thrace  and  Macedo- 
nia ought  then  to  be  Bulgarian  since  the  people  who  live  there  are 
Bulgarians. 

And  his  friend  the  Servian  Vladimir  Yovanovits  on  his  side,  regarded  Bos- 
nia, Herzegovina  and  Metchia  as  the  only  Servian  lands  in  Turkey,  that  is  Old 
Servia  in  the  most  limited  sense  of  the  term,  which  shows  that  he  accepted  the 
view  of  Macedonia  as  Bulgarian. 

Yet  there  existed  in  Servia  at  this  epoch  a  section  of  nationalist  opinion  which 
declared  that  Old  Servia  included  the  whole  of  Macedonia  and  claimed  it  as  having 

Article  X  of  the  Firman  of  March  11,  1870.  *  *  *  "If  the  whole  orthodox  population 
or  at  least  two-thirds  thereof,  desire  to  establish  an  exarchy  for  the  control  of  their 
spiritual  affairs  in  localities  other  than  those  indicated  above,  and  this  desire  be  clearly 
established,  they  may  be  permitted  to  do  as  they  wish.  Such  permission,  however,  may  only 
be  accorded  with  the  consent  or  upon  the  request  of  the  whole  population,  or  at  least 
two-thirds  thereof. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN   WARS  25 

formed  part  of  the  "Great"  Servia  of  the  time  of  Douchan  the  Strong.  These 
Servian  nationalists  did  not  confine  themselves  to  polemics  in  the  press :  they  be- 
gan to  organize  schools  in  Macedonia,  where  the  Servian  masters  were  instructed 
to  teach  in  literary  Servian  and  employ  text  books  written  in  Belgrade.  Mr.  Milo- 
yevits,  one  of  the  leaders  of  this  movement,  tells  us  that  in  1865  there  was  only 
one  school  in  Macedonia  proper  founded  by  the  Servians;  in  1866  there  were 
already  as  many  as  six ;  in  1867,  32 ;  in  1868,  42.  From  that  time  on  the  Servian 
government  became  interested  in  these  schools  and  began  subsidizing  them.  The 
Macedonian  population  on  the  other  hand  received  the  schools  willingly.  Were 
not  the  schoolmasters  Slavs  who  had  come  to  Macedonia  to  fight  the  Greek  in- 
fluence ?  Soon,  however,  it  appeared  that  the  Servian  teachers  were  there  to  carry 
on  propaganda  for  their  nationality.  The  Bulgarian  press  was  roused,  and  from 
1869  on  a  lively  dispute  followed. 

The  partisans  of  the  "Yougo-Slav  Federation"  consoled  themselves  with  the 
reflection  that  this  Servian  nationalist  doctrine  only  represented  the  views  of  a 
small  group  of  journalists  and  dilettante  historians  and  ethnographers.  But  as  we 
have  seen,  it  had  already  secured  the  support  of  the  State.  Two  circumstances 
contributed  to  accentuate  this  tendency :  one,  the  organization  of  the  new  national 
Bulgarian  church, — the  exarchy;  the  other,  the  diplomatic  check  to  Servia's 
hopes  of  an  outlet  on  the  Adriatic. 

Mention  has  already  been  made  of  an  early  success  of  the  exarchist  church 
in  Macedonia — the  two  berats  sanctioning  the  bishoprics  of  Okhrida  and  Uskub. 
Other  victories  were  to  follow.  The  Greeks,  who  had  considered  Macedonia  as 
their  patrimony,  naturally  viewed  them  with  disfavor.  It  occurred  to  them,  as  a 
means  of  withdrawing  the  attention  of  the  Bulgarians  from  Macedonia,  to  sug- 
gest the  extension  of  the  Bulgarian  ecclesiastical  organization  to  the  Servian  coun- 
tries, Bosnia  and  Herzegovina.  The  suggestion  pleased  the  Bulgarians,  but  al- 
though they  accepted  the  Greek  proposition,  they  did  not  renounce  their  Mace- 
donian pretensions.  The  list  of  the  exarchist  dioceses  to  be  created  became  a 
long  one,  embracing  as  it  soon  did  the  whole  of  Macedonia,  Old  Servia,  Bosnia  and 
Herzegovina. 

The  Servian  government  could  not  regard  such  claims  with  indifference, 
since  it  was  fully  aware  of  the  inseparability  of  the  ideas  of  nationality  and  a  na- 
tional church.  The  Servian  Ministry  therefore  pointed  out  that  while  the  ethno- 
graphic nature  of  the  Macedonian  dioceses  formed  subject  of  discussion,  those  of 
Old  Servia  were  indisputably  Servian.  If  the  Bulgarian  dioceses  wished  to  form 
an  exarchist  church,  the  dioceses  of  the  ancient  Servian  provinces  must,  in  their 
turn,  recognize  the  head  of  the  church  of  the  Servian  principality  as  their  spirit- 
ual head.  Here  was  the  whole  Macedonian  conflict  in  germ.  Even  the  tactics 
employed  foreshadow  the  course  of  recent  events. 

Servia  joined  Greece  against  the  Bulgarian  exarchy.  The  Servians,  fighting 
against  the  national  Bulgarian  church,  chose  to  remain  subject  to  the  Greek  pa- 


26  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 

triarch.  He  profited  by  this  to  impose  Greek  bishops  upon  them  and  persisted  in 
giving  a  Greek  denomination  to  their  religious  communities.  Thus  did  the  Ser- 
vians in  Turkey  deprive  themselves  of  their  own  free  will  of  the  most  effective 
weapon  in  the  national  conflict.  From  this  time  on  the  "exarchist"  was  exclusively 
Bulgarian  and  the  Macedonian  population,  called  Boulgari  from  time  imme- 
morial, began  to  feel  itself  at  once  Bulgarian  and  Slav.  Outside  the  national 
Bulgarian  church,  which  thus  remained  the  Slav  church  in  Macedonia,  there 
were  only  "patriarchists"  of  every  kind — Greek,  Wallachian  or  Servian  united 
under  one  Greek  ecclesiastical  authority,  that  of  Constantinople. 

The  second  circumstance  driving  Servia  to  accentuate  its  Macedonian  pre- 
tensions was  the  "occupation"  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  by  Austria  Hungary. 
It  is  now  known  that  at  the  interview  between  Emperor  Alexander  II  and  Emper- 
or Francis  Joseph  at  Reichstadt  on  July  8,  1876,  it  was  agreed  that  in  the  event 
of  Servia  or  Montenegro  winning  independence,  Austria  Hungary  should  have 
the  right  to  "occupy  and  administer"  these  provinces.  The  same  terms  were  re- 
peated in  the  Berlin  treaty.  At  the  same  time  Austria  Hungary  emphasized  her 
assertion  that  she  regarded  Servia  as  within  her  sphere  of  influence. 

At  Reichstadt,  Russia  agreed  not  to  make  war  on  Servian  territory,  and 
when  General  Ignatiev  suggested  the  annexation  of  Bosnia  to  the  Austrian  dip- 
lomats as  the  condition  of  recognition  of  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano,  Count  An- 
drassy  replied  by  a  counter  proposition,  that  of  leaving  Russia  full  freedom  of  ac- 
tion in  Bulgaria  on  condition  of  the  proclamation  of  Macedonia's  autonomy  under 
Austro-Hungarian  protection. 

After  the  Berlin  Congress,  Austria  Hungary  entered  into  closer  relations 
with  King  Milan  of  Servia.  He  signed  the  secret  treaty  of  1881,  in  which  (§7) 
Austria  Hungary  formally  declared  that  she  "would  not  oppose,  would  even 
support  Servia  against  other  powers  in  the  event  of  the  latter's  rinding  a  way  of 
extending  its  southern  boundary,  exception  being  made  in  the  case  of  the  Sand- 
jak  of  Novi  Bazar."  In  1889,  when  this  treaty  was  renewed,  Austria  Hungary 
promised  in  even  clearer  terms  "to  aid  in  the  extension  of  Servia  in  the  direction 
of  the  Vardar  valley."  Thus  at  the  very  moment  when  Austria  Hungary  was 
depriving  Servia  of  any  possibility  of  westward  extension,  by  joining  the  section 
of  the  Servian  population  inhabiting  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  to  herself,  Aus- 
trian diplomacy  was  holding  out  by  way  of  compensation,  the  hope  of  an  exten- 
sion towards  the  south,  in  those  territories  whose  population  had,  up  to  1860- 
1870,  been  universally  recognized  as  Bulgarian,  even  by  the  Servians. 

From  this  time  on  nationalism  distinctly  gained  ground  in  Servia.  The 
whole  of  Macedonia  was  identified  with  "Old  Servia"  and  "Young  Servia," 
in  its  map.  claimed  the  entire  territory  occupied  under  the  rule  of  Stephen 
Douchan,  in  the  fourteenth  century.  At  this  period  the  net  work  of  Servian 
schools  spread  specially  fast,  thanks  to  the  aid  of  the  Turks,  who  here  as  else- 
where followed  their  habitual  policy  of  playing  off  the  Servian  and  Greek 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS  27 

minorities  against  the  stronger  and  more  dangerous  majority  of  the  Bulgarian 
exarchists.  In  1889  the  Servian  school  manuals  were  for  the  first  time  pub- 
lished at  Constantinople  with  ministerial  sanction  and  the  Servian  school  soon 
ceased  to  be  secret  and  persecuted.  In  1895-96  according  to  official  Servian  sta- 
tistics there  were  157  schools  with  6,831  scholars  and  238  male  and  female 
teachers.  It  is,  however,  noteworthy  that  eighty  of  these  schools,  comprising 
3,958  scholars  and  120  male  and  female  teachers  were  situated  in  Old  Servia 
properly  so-called,  that  is  to  say,  that  more  than  half  of  them  belonged  to  coun- 
tries which  were  undoubtedly  Servian. 

Here  are  the  statistics  for  the  Bulgarian-exarchist  schools  for  the  same 
period:  there  were  in  Macedonia  1896-97,  843  such  schools  (against  77  Servian 
schools),  1,306  teachers  (Servian,  118)  ;  31,719  scholars  (Servian,  2,873)  ;  chil- 
dren in  the  kindergarten,  14,713. 

These  figures  show  that  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  the  Slav  population  of  Macedonia  was  sending  its  children  to  the 
exarchist  Bulgarian  school.  The  school  became  henceforth  an  auxiliary  of  the 
national  movement,  and  independent  of  the  church.  The  movement  changed 
both  its  character  and  its  object.  Side  by  side  with  the  ecclesiastical  movement 
led  by  priests  and  assisted  by  the  religious  council  of  the  community,  there  arose 
about  1895  a  revolutionary  movement,  directed  against  the  Turkish  regime, 
whose  object  was  political  autonomy  and  whose  leaders  were  recruited  from  the 
school  teachers.  On  the  other  hand  the  resistance  of  the  minorities,  supported 
by  the  Turks,  grew  more  pronounced.  "Patriarchism"  and  "exarchism"  became 
the  rallying  cries  of  the  two  conflicting  nations.  From  this  time  on  the  ethno- 
graphic composition  of  Macedonia  was  only  to  be  elucidated  by  an  enumeration  of 
"exarchist"  and  "patriarchist"  households — a  most  uncertain  and  fluctuating 
method  since  the  strife  grew  more  complicated,  so  that  one  and  the  same  family 
would  sometimes  be  divided  into  "Bulgarians,"  "Greeks,"  "Wallachians"  and 
"Servians,"  according  to  the  church  attended  by  this  or  that  member. 

The  new  generation  in  Servia  therefore  now  sought  a  more  reliable  and 
scientific  means  of  determining  nationality,  and  found  it  in  language.  Youthful 
scholars  devoted  themselves  to  the  study  of  Macedonian  dialects  and  sought  for 
phonetic  and  morphological  traces  of  Servian  influence  which  might  enable 
them  to  be  classified  among  Servian  dialects.  Bulgarian  linguists,  on  their  side 
did  the  same,  and  insisted  on  an  essentially  Bulgarian  basis  in  the  Macedonian 
dialects. 

The  rival  claims  to  Macedonia  might  be  summed  up  under  the  following 
main  heads: — 

(1)  "Historical  rights"  to  the  possession  of  Macedonia,  acquired  by  Simeon 
the  Bulgarian  or  Douchan  the  Servian.     (Tenth  or  fourteenth  century.) 

(2)  Resemblance  in  customs   (above  all  those  pertaining  to  the  Fete  of 


28  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 

New  Year's  Day — the  Slava,  claimed  by  the  Servians  as  the  sign  of  their  na- 
tionality). 

(3)  Religion — exarchist  or  patriarchist. 

(4)  The  spoken  language. 

Official  Turkish  statistics  admitted  only  one  principle  of  discrimination  be- 
tween the  ethnic  groups  dwelling  in  Macedonia,  namely  religion.  Thus  all  the 
Mahomrnedans  formed  a  single  group  although  there  might  be  among  them 
Turks,  Albanians,  Bulgarian  "pomaks,"  etc. :  all  the  patriarchists  in  the  same  way 
were  grouped  together  as  '"'Greeks,"  although  there  might  be  among  them  Ser- 
vians, Wallachians,  Bulgarians,  etc.  Only  in  the  "exarchist"  group,  did  religion 
coincide,  more  or  less,  with  Bulgarian  nationality.  The  Turkish  official  registers 
included  men  only;  women  were  not  mentioned,  since  the  registers  served  only 
for  the  purposes  of  military  service  and  taxation.  Often  nothing  was  set  down 
but  the  number  of  "households."  This  explains  the  lack  of  anything  approaching 
exact  statistics  of  the  Macedonian  populations.  Owing  to  the  different  princi- 
ples and  methods  of  calculation  employed,  national  propagandists  arrived  at 
wholly  discrepant  results,  generally  exaggerated  in  the  interest  of  their  own  na- 
tionality. The  table  subjoined  shows  how  great  is  this  divergence  in  estimate  and 
calculation : 

BULGARIAN  STATISTICS     (Mr.  Kantchev,  1900) 

Turks    499,204 

Bulgarians   1,181,336 

Greeks    228,702 

Albanians  128,711 

Wallachians    80,767 

Jews    67,840 

Gypsies    54.557 

Servians   700 

Miscellaneous    16,407 


Total   2,258,224 


DIALECTS  OF  MACEDONIA 

AFTER  A.  BE'LITS 

FROM  THE  SERVIAN  POINT  OF  VIEW 


Timok  Dialect. 
ii'liill      Prizrend  Dialect. 

Serbo-Macedonian  Dialect. 


Bulgarian  Territory  where  Servian  is  spoken. 
Bulgaro-Macedonian  Territory  where  Servian 

is  spoken. 
Non-Slavic  Territory. 


30  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 


SERVIAN  STATISTICS  (Mr.  Gopcevic,  1889)  1 

Turks    231,400 

Bulgarians    . ..  57,600 

Greeks    201,140 

Albanians  165,620 

Wallachians    69,665 

Jews    64,645 

Gypsies    28,730 

Servians    2,048,320 

Miscellaneous   3,500 


Total   2,870,620 

GREEK  STATISTICS    (Mr.   Delyani,    1904) 
(Kosovo  vilayet  omitted) 

Turks    634,017 

Bulgarians    332,162 

Greeks    652,795 

Albanians   

Wallachians    25,101 

Jews  53,147 

Gypsies    8,911 

Servians   

Miscellaneous    18,685 


Total 1,724,818 

The  Bulgarian  statistics  alone  take  into  account  the  national  consciousness  of 
the  people  themselves.  The  Servian  calculations  are  generally  based  on  the  re- 
sults of  the  study  of  dialect  and  on  the  identity  of  customs:  they  are  therefore 
largely  theoretic  and  abstract  in  character.  The  Greek  calculations  are  even  more 
artificial,  since  their  ethnic  standard  is  the  influence  exercised  by  Greek  civiliza- 
tion on  the  urban  populations,  and  even  the  recollections  and  traces  of  classical 
antiquity. 

The  same  difficulties  meet  us  when  we  leave  population  statistics  and  turn 
to  geographical  distribution.  From  an  ethnographical  point  of  view  the  popula- 
tion of  Macedonia  is  extremely  mixed.  The  old  maps,  from  that  of  Ami  Bone 
(1847)  down,  follow  tradition  in  regarding  the  Slav  population  of  Macedonia 
as  Bulgarian.  Later  local  charts  make  the  whole  country  either  Servian,  or  Greek. 
Any  attempt  at  more  exact  delineation,  based  on  topical  study,  is  of  recent  date. 
There  are,  for  example,  Mr.  Kantchev's  maps,  representing  Bulgarian  opinion, 
and  the  better  known  one  of  Mr.  Tsviyits  representing  Servian.  But  Mr.  Tsviyits' 
ethnographic  ideas  vary  also  with  the  development  of  Servia's  political  preten- 
sions. In  1909  he  gave  "Old  Servia"  a  different  outline  from  that  he  gave  in 
1911  (see  his  map  published  in  the  "Petermann"  series)  ;  and  in  the  hour  of 
Servian  victory  on  the  eve  of  the  second  Balkan  war,  another  professor  at  Bel- 
grade University,  Mr.  Belits,  published  his  map,  based  on  a  study  of  dialects,  a 

1Recent  Servian  authorities  avoid  giving  general  figures  or  else,  like  Mr.  Guersine,  sug- 
gest a  total  for  the  Macedonian  Slav  population  which  approximates  more  closely  to  Mr. 
Kantchev's  figures. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS  31 

map  which  satisfied  the  most  recent  and  immoderate  pretensions.  The  Servo- 
Bulgarian  frontier  recognized  by  the  treaty  of  March  13  is  plainly  inspired  by 
the  ideas  of  Mr.  Tsviyits,  while  the  line  drawn  by  Mr.  Belits  reveals  and  explains 
the  causes  of  the  breaking  of  the  treaty  and  the  war  between  the  allies. 

But  we  are  anticipating.  We  must  now  return  to  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
century  to  see  two  parallel  and  rival  ideas  ripening — the  ideas  of  the  autonomy 
and  of  the  partition  of  Macedonia. 

2.     THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  AUTONOMY 

The  part  played  by  Russia  in  the  liberation  of  Bulgaria  is  sufficiently  well 
known.  It  is  much  less  well  known  that  this  liberation  was  preceded  in  1878  by 
a  national  movement  on  the  spot.  Of  this  we  have  spoken  already  in  connec- 
tion with  the  peaceful  struggle  carried  on  by  the  exarchate  against  the  Phanariot 
Greeks.  It  was  accompanied  by  a  revolutionary  movement  whose  aim  was  the 
independence  of  Bulgaria.  As  in  Servia  and  in  Greece  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  movement  found  allies  among  the  semi-brigand,  semi- 
revolutionary  mountain  chiefs,  known  as  haidouks.  The  principal  leaders,  the 
"apostles"  of  the  movement,  however,  were  revolutionaries  of  a  more  modern 
type,  intellectuals  whose  education  had  frequently  been  acquired  in  foreign  schools 
and  universities.  The  generation  of  the  "apostles"  declared  against  the  older 
methods  of  conflict,  the  ecclesiastical  methods  adopted  by  the  tchobadjis,  or  na- 
bobs of  the  Bulgarian  colony  at  Constantinople.  The  people  were  with  the  apos- 
tles, and  the  era  of  insurrections  began,  bringing  in  its  train  the  Turkish  atroci- 
ties which  Gladstone  revealed  to  the  civilized  world.  The  Macedonian  Bulga- 
rians shared  in  this  movement  as  well  as  the  Bulgarians  of  Bulgaria  proper.  It 
was  quite  natural  that  the  close  of  the  Russo-Turkish  war  should  see  arising  the 
idea  of  an  "undivided  Bulgaria,"  conceived  within  the  limits  of  the  treaty  of  San 
Stefano  and  including  all  the  populations  in  Turkey  regarded  by  themselves  as 
Bulgarian.  The  protestations  of  Servian  nationalism  were  stifled  by  the  Servians 
themselves,  for  they,  like  Mr.  Verkovits,  had  recognized  all  the  countries  enclosed 
within  the  boundaries  of  the  Bulgaria  of  the  future,  imagined  by  Count  Ignatiev, 
as  traditionally  Bulgarian.1 

The  fate  of  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano  is  familiar.  The  principality  of  Bul- 
garia was  dismembered,  and  Macedonia  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  Turks.  This 
was  the  origin  and  cause  of  all  subsequent  conflicts.  "Undivided  Bulgaria," 
tsielo  coupna  Boulgaria,  became  in  future  the  goal  and  the  ideal  of  Bulgarian  na- 


xlt  should  be  added  that  the  ethnographic  boundaries  of  Bulgaria,  including  therein 
Macedonia,  were,  previous  to  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano,  indicated  in  the  Minutes  of  the 
Conference  at  Constantinople  in  1876.  (See  the  debates  of  December  11/23.)  The  treaty 
of  San  Stefano  as  agreed  upon  between  Russia  and  Turkey  was,  as  is  known,  modified  in 
essential  respects  and  remade  by  the  Berlin  agreement,  which  divided  this  ethnographic 
Bulgaria  in  three  parts:  (i)  The  principality  of  Bulgaria;  (ii)  The  vassal  province  of 
Eastern  Roumelia;  (iii)  The  Turkish  province  of  Macedonia. 


32 


REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 


tional  policy.  Turkey  replied  by  favoring  minorities.  An  internal  conflict  fol- 
lowed by  the  use  of  means  of  which  the  late  war  has  given  an  appalling  example. 
From  this  time  on  there  was  no  more  security  in  Macedonia.  Each  of  the  rival 
nations, — Bulgarian,  Greek,  Servian,  counted  its  heroes  and  its  victims,  its  cap- 
tains and  its  recruits,  in  this  national  guerrilla  warfare  and  the  result  for  each 
was  a  long  martyrology.  By  the  beginning  of  1904  the  number  of  political  as- 
sassinations in  Macedonia  had,  according  to  the  English  Blue  Book,  reached  an 
average  of  one  hundred  per  month.  The  Bulgarians  naturally  were  the  strongest, 
their  bands  the  most  numerous,  their  whole  militant  organization  possessing 
the  most  extensive  roots  in  the  population  of  the  country.  The  government  of 


BULGARIA 

after  the  conference  of 

CONSTANTINOPLE 
1876-1877 


Th.  Weinreb  dal. 


the  Bulgarian  principality  had  presided  at  the  origination  of  the  Macedonian 
movement  in  the  time  of  Stefane  Stamboulov  (about  1895).  There  was,  how- 
ever, always  a  divergence  between  the  views  of  official  Bulgaria  which  sought  to 
use  the  movement  as  an  instrument  in  its  foreign  policy,  and  those  of  the  revolu- 
tionaries proper,  most  of  them  young  people  enamored  of  independence  and  filled 
with  a  kind  of  cosmopolitan  idealism. 

The  revolutionary  movement  in  Macedonia  has  frequently  been  represented 
as  a  product  of  Bulgarian  ambition  and  the  Bulgarian  government  held  directly 
responsible  for  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  hands  of  the  government 
were  always  forced  by  the  Macedonians,  who  relied  on  public  opinion,  violently 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS  33 

excited  by  the  press,  and  the  direct  propaganda  of  the  leaders.  There  certainly 
was  a  "Central  Committee"  at  Sofia,  whose  president  was  generally  someone  who 
enjoyed  the  confidence  of  the  prince.  This  committee,  however,  served  chiefly 
as  the  representative  of  the  movement  in  the  eyes  of  the  foreigner;  in  the  eyes 
of  the  real  leaders  it  was  always  suspected  of  too  great  eagerness  to  serve  the  dy- 
nastic ambitions  of  King  Ferdinand.  It  was  in  Macedonia  that  the  real  revo- 
lutionary organization,  uncompromising  and  jealous  of  its  independence,  was  to 
be  found.  For  the-  origins  of  this  internal  organization  we  must  go  back  to 
1893,  when,  in  the 'little  village  of  Resna,  a  small  group  of  young  Bulgarian  in- 
tellectuals founded  a  secret  society  with  the  clearly  expressed  intention  of  "pre- 
paring the  Christian  population  for  armed  struggle  against  the  Turkish  regime 
in  order  to  win  personal  security  and  guarantees  for  order  and  justice  in  the  ad- 
ministration," which  may  be  translated  as  the  political  autonomy  of  Macedonia. 
The  "internal  organization"  did  not  aim  at  the  annexation  of  Macedonia  to  Bul- 
garia; it  called  all  nationalities  dwelling  in  the  three  vilayets  to  join  its  ranks. 
No  confidence  was  felt  in  Europe ;  hope  was  set  on  energetic  action  by  the  people. 
To  procure  arms,  distribute  them  to  the  young  people  in  the  villages,  and  drill  the 
latter  in  musketry  and  military  evolutions — such  were  the  first  endeavors  of  the 
conspirators.  All  this  was  not  long  in  coming  to  the  notice  of  the  Turks,  who 
came  by  accident  upon  a  depot  of  arms  and  bombs  at  Vinitsa.  This  discovery 
gave  the  signal  for  Turkish  acts  of  repression  and  atrocities  which  counted  more 
than  two  hundred  victims.  From  that  time  on,  there  was  no  further  halt  in  the 
struggle  in  Macedonia.  The  people,  far  from  being  discouraged  by  torture  and 
massacre,  became  more  and  more  keenly  interested  in  the  organization.  In  a 
few  years  the  country  was  ready  for  the  struggle.  The  whole  country  had  been 
divided  into  military  districts,  each  with  its  captain  and  militia  staff.  The  central 
"organization,"  gathering  force  "everywhere  and  nowhere"  had  all  the  regular 
machinery  of  a  revolutionary  organization ;  an  "executive  police,"  a  postal  service 
and  even  an  espionage  service  to  meet  the  blows  of  the  enemy  and  punish  "trai- 
tors and  spies."  Throughout  this  period  of  full  expansion,  the  people  turned 
voluntarily  to  the  leaders,  even  in  the  settlement  of  their  private  affairs,  instead  of 
going  before  the  Ottoman  officials  and  judges,  and  gladly  paid  their  contributions 
to  the  revolutionary  body.  Self-confidence  grew  to  such  a  point  that  offensive 
action  began  to  be  taken.  The  agricultural  laborers  tried  striking  against  their 
Turkish  masters  for  a  rise  in  wages,  to  bring  them  up  to  the  minimum  laid  down 
by  the  leaders  of  the  "organization."  They  grew  bolder  in  risking  open  skirmishes 
with  the  Turkish  troops ;  and  the  official  report  of  the  "organization"  records  that 
as  many  as  132  conflicts  (512  victims)  took  place  in  the  period  1898-1902.  At  last 
European  diplomacy  stirs.  The  first  scheme  of  reforms  appeared,  formulated  by 
Russia  and  Austria  in  virtue  of  their  entente  of  1897.  The  Austro-Russian  note 
of  February,  1903,  formulates  demands  too  modest  to  be  capable  of  solving  the 
problem.  The  result  was  as  usual ;  the  Porte  hastens  to  prevent  European  action 


34  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

by  promising  in  January  to  inaugurate  reforms.  The  Macedonian  revolutionaries 
are  in  despair.  A  little  group  of  extremists  detaches  itself  from  the  Committee 
to  attempt  violent  measures  such  as  might  stir  Europe;  in  June  bombs  were 
thrown  at  Salonica.  On  July  20  (old  style)  the  day  of  St.  Elie  (lline-den)  a 
formal  insurrection  breaks  out:  the  rayas  see  that  they  are  strong  enough  to 
measure  themselves  against  their  old  oppressors. 

It  is  the  climax  of  the  "internal  organization"  and  that  of  its  fall.  The  heroism 
of  the  rebels  breaks  itself  against  the  superior  force  of  the  regular  army.  The  fight- 
ing ratio  is  one  to  thirteen,  26,000  to  351,000;  there  are  a  thousand  deaths  and, 
in  the  final  result,  200  villages  ruined  by  Turkish  vengeance,  12,000  houses  burned, 
3,000  women  outraged,  4,700  inhabitants  slain  and  71,000  without  a  roof.  [We 
quote  throughout  from  the  official  report  of  the  "organization."] 

The  decadence  of  the  "internal  organization"  begins  here,  with  the  usual 
consequences — demoralization  and  Jacobinism.  Traitors  are  searched  out,  and 
to  an  increasing  extent  discovered  and  executed ;  funds  are  extorted  and  employed 
on  private  purposes  instead  of  on  the  national  conflict ;  forced  idleness  condemns 
men  to  a  life  of  disorder  and  coarse  pleasure.  The  first  period  of  the  struggle  is 
at  an  end  (1897-1904). 

Now,  however,  the  whole  of  Europe  begins  to  interest  itself  in  the 
affairs  of  Macedonia.  The  second  period  opens ;  it  is  marked  by  attempts 
to  organize  European  control  over  the  Turkish  regime  (1905-1907).  Mace- 
donian autonomy  becomes  the  distant  goal  of  diplomatic  efforts.  Gradually 
an  understanding  begins  to  be  reached,  as  questions  are  taken  one  by 
one,  and  the  attempt  is  made  to  reform  Turkish  administration,  police, 
finance  and  justice  in  Macedonia.  We  need  not  linger  over  the  details  of 
this  portion  of  Balkan  history,  for  it  is  but  too  familiar.  Generally  speaking,  it 
is  the  repetition,  on  a  larger  scale,  of  what  had  been  going  on  for  half  a  century. 
First,  unreal  concessions,  then,  as  soon  as  they  begin  to  become  onerous,  general 
reform  on  paper  which  sweeps  away  and  slurs  over  all  practical  details ;  and 
finally,  the  moment  of  tension  once  over,  and  the  attention  of  Europe  averted, 
the  old  order  once  again — with  the  single  difference  that  the  concessions 
agreed  upon  this  time  were  more  important.  The  loss  of  a  whole  province  seemed 
threatened.  So  the  reaction  was  all  the  greater.  Instead  of  the  Hamidian  con- 
stitution of  1876,  here  was  a  new  one,  imposed  this  time  on  the  sovereign  by  the 
Young  Turk  Revolution.  Reforms  were  imposed  [in  the  name  of  the  people]. 
The  Great  Powers  had  nothing  more  to  do  in  Macedonia.  They  departed  amid 
the  joyous  cries  of  the  multitude,  while  the  leaders  of  the  different  nationalities, 
only  yesterday  on  terms  of  irreconcilable  hostility,  embraced  one  another.  The 
last  attempt  at  the  reconstruction  of  the  Ottoman  State  was  about  to  begin;  the 
third  and  last  period  of  our  history  (1908-12). 

Its  opening  was  of  very  happy  augury.  Proclaimed  to  the  strains  of  the 
Marseillaise,  the  young  Turkish  revolution  promised  to  solve  all  difficulties 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN   WARS  35 

and  pacify  all  hatreds  by  substituting  justice  for  arbitrary  rule,  and  freedom  for 
despots.  First  and  foremost  it  proclaimed  complete  equality  as  between  the  di- 
verse nationalities  inhabiting  Turkey,  in  reliance  on  their  Ottoman  patriotism, 
their  attachment  to  the  vatan,  to  their  fatherland  one  and  indivisible.  The  parti- 
sans of  Macedonian  autonomy  take  up  once  more  their  hopes  of  reaching  their 
end  without  alarming  the  susceptibilities  of  the  dominant  race.  The  revolution- 
aries and  comitadjis  of  yesterday  lay  down  their  arms  and  go  down  from  their 
mountains  to  the  big  towns;  neither  arms  nor  secret  relations  with  the  neighbor- 
ing Balkan  governments  are  any  longer  needed.  Bulgarian  Macedonians  above  all 
dream  that  they  can  now  become  good  Ottoman  patriots,  while  still  faithful  to 
their  national  ambitions. 

It  is  a  dream  of  but  a  moment's  duration.  The  Young  Turkish  revolution 
proves  itself  from  the  very  first  narrow  and  nationalist.  Far  from  satisfying  the 
tendencies  of  re-awakening  nationalism,  it  sets  itself  a  task  to  which  the  absolu- 
tism of  the  Sultan  had  never  ventured ;  to  reconstruct  the  Turkey  of  the  Caliph- 
ate and  transform  it  into  a  modern  state,  beginning  by  the  complete  abolition 
of  the  rights  and  privileges  of  the  different  ethnic  groups.  These  rights  and 
privileges,  confirmed  by  firmans  and  guaranteed  by  European  diplomacy,  were 
the  sole  means  by  which  the  Christian  nationalities  could  safeguard  their  lan- 
guage, their  beliefs,  their  ancient  civilizations.  These  barriers  once  down,  they 
felt  themselves  threatened  by  Ottoman  assimilation  in  a  way  that  had  never 
been  threatened  before  in  the  course  of  the  ages  since  the  capture  of  Constanti- 
nople by  Mahomet  II.  This  assimilation,  this  "Ottomanization,"  was  the  avowed 
aim  of  the  victor,  the  committee  of  "Union  and  Progress." 

Worse  still:  the  assimilation  of  heterogeneous  populations  could  only  be 
effected  slowly,  however  violent  might  be  the  measures  threatening  the  future 
existence  of  the  separate  nationalities.  The  men  of  the  Committee  had  not  even 
confidence  in  the  action  of  time.  They  wished  to  destroy  their  enemies  forth- 
with, while  they  were  still  in  power.  Since  national  rivalries  in  Macedonia 
offered  an  ever-ready  pretext  for  the  intervention  of  the  Powers,  they  decided 
to  make  an  end  of  the  question  with  all  possible  celerity.  They  were  sure — and 
frequently  stated  their  assurance  in  the  Chamber — that  the  ancien  regime  was  to 
blame  for  the  powerlessness  it  had  shown  in  Macedonia.  They,  on  the  other 
hand,  with  their  new  methods,  would  have  made  an  end  of  it  in  a  few  months, 
or  at  most  a  few  years. 

Nevertheless  it  was  the  old  methods  that  were  employed.  A  beginning  was 
made  in  1909  by  violating  the  article  of  the  constitution  which  proclaimed  the  lib- 
erty of  associations.  The  various  ethnic  groups,  and  especially  the  Bulgarians, 
had  taken  advantage  of  this  article  to  found  national  clubs  in  Macedonia.  As 
the  pre-1908  revolutionary  organizations  had  been  dissolved  by  their  heads,  in  their 
capacity  of  loyal  Ottoman  citizens,  they  had  been  replaced  by  clubs  which  had 
served  as  the  nucleus  of  an  open  national  organization.  Their  objective  was  now 


36  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

electoral  instead  of  armed  conflict ;  and  while  secretly  arming  there  was  neverthe- 
less a  readiness  to  trust  the  Ottoman  Parliament,  to  leave  it  to  time  to  accomplish 
the  task  of  regeneration  and  actual  realization  of  constitutional  principles.  The 
Bulgarian  revolutionaries  had  even  concluded  a  formal  agreement  with  the  revolu- 
tionaries of  the  Committee  of  Union  and  Progress,  according  to  which  the  return 
home  of  the  insurgents  was  regarded  as  conditional  only,  and  the  internal  organi- 
zation only  to  be  disbanded  on  condition  that  the  constitution  was  really  put  in 
force. 

The  Committee  once  in  power  saw  the  danger  of  these  national  political  or- 
ganizations and  entered  on  a  systematic  conflict  with  its  allies  of  yesterday.  From 
the  spring  of  1909  onwards,  the  partisans  of  the  Committee  caused  the  assassi- 
nation one  after  another  of  all  those  who  had  been  at  the  head  of  revolutionary 
bands  or  committees  under  the  previous  regime.  In  the  autumn  of  1909  the  final 
blow  was  aimed  at  the  open  organizations.  (The  Union  of  Bulgarian  constitu- 
tional clubs  included  at  that  moment  sixty-seven  branches  in  Macedonia.)  In 
November,  the  Chamber  passed  an  Association  law  which  forbade  "any  organi- 
zation based  upon  national  denomination."  An  end  was  thus  successfully  put  to 
the  legal  existence  of  the  clubs,  but  not  to  the  clubs  themselves.  Revolutionary 
activity  began  again  from  the  moment  when  open  legal  conflict  became  impossible. 

The  Christian  populations  had  good  reasons  for  revolting  against  the  new 
Turkish  regime.  Articles  11  and  16  of  the  revised  constitution  infringed  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  the  religious  communities  and  national  schools.  The 
Ottoman  State  claimed  to  extend  the  limits  of  its  action  under  the  pretext  of 
"protecting  the  exercise  of  all  forms  of  worship"  and  "watching  over  all  public 
schools."  The  principles  might  appear  modern  but  in  practice  they  were  but  new 
means  for  arriving  at  the  same  end — the  "Ottomanization"  of  the  Empire.  This 
policy  aimed  at  both  Greeks  and  Bulgarians.  For  the  Greeks,  the  violent  enemies 
of  the  Young  Turkish  Movement  from  its  beginning,  it  was  the  economic  boycott 
declared  by  the  Committee  against  all  the  Greeks  of  the  Empire  in  retaliation 
for  the  attempts  of  the  Cretans  to  reunite  themselves  with  the  mother  country. 
It  was  forbidden  for  months  that  the  good  Ottomans  should  frequent  shops  or 
cafes  kept  by  Greeks.  Greek  ships  stopped  coming  into  Ottoman  ports,  unable  to 
find  any  laborers  to  handle  their  cargo. 

Even  more  dangerous  was  the  policy  of  Turkizing  Macedonia  by  means  of 
systematic  colonization,  carried  out  by  the  mohadjirs — emigrants,  Moslems  from 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina.  This  measure  caused  discontent  with  the  new  regime 
to  penetrate  down  to  the  agricultural  classes.  They  were  almost  universally  Bul- 
garian tenant  farmers  who  had  cultivated  the  tchifliks  (farms)  of  the  Turkish 
beys  from  time  immemorial.  In  the  course  of  the  last  few  years  they  had  begun 
to  buy  back  the  lands  of  their  overlords,  mainly  with  the  money  many  of  them 
brought  home  from  America.  All  this  was  now  at  an  end.  Not  only  had  the 
purchase  of  their  holdings  become  impossible;  the  Turks  began  turning  the  ten- 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN   WARS  37 

ants  out  of  their  farms.  The  government  bought  up  all  the  land  for  sale  to  es- 
tablish mohadjirs  (Moslem  refugees  from  Bosnia)  upon  it. 

This  was  the  final  stroke.  The  leaders  of  the  disarmed  bands  could  now  re- 
turn to  their  mountains  where  they  rejoined  old  companions  in  arms.  The  "in- 
ternal organization"  again  took  up  the  direction  of  the  revolutionary  movement. 
On  October  31,  1911,  it  "declared  publicly  that  it  assumed  responsibility  for  all  the 
attacks  on  and  encounters  with  the  Turkish  army  by  the  insurgents  in  this  and  the 
previous  year,  and  for  all  other  revolutionary  manifestations."  The  Young 
Turkish  Government  had  not  waited  for  this  declaration  to  gain  cognizance  of 
revolutionary  activity  and  take  action  upon  it.  So  early  as  November,  1909,  it 
had  replied  by  an  iniquitous  "band"  law,  making  the  regular  authorities  of  the 
villages,  all  the  families  where  any  member  disappeared  from  his  home,  the  whole 
population  of  any  village  harboring  a  comitadji,  responsible  for  all  the  deeds  and 
words  of  the  voluntary,  irregular  associations.  In  the  summer  of  1910  a  system- 
atic perquisition  was  instituted  in  Macedonia  with  the  object  of  discovering 
arms  hidden  in  the  villagers'  houses.  The  vexations,  the  tortures  to  which  peace- 
ful populations  were  thus  subjected  can  not  possibly  be  enumerated  here.  In 
November,  1910,  Mr.  Pavlov,  Bulgarian  deputy,  laid  the  facts  before  the  Ottoman 
Parliament.  He  had  counted  as  many  as  1,853  persons  individually  subjected 
to  assault  and  ill  treatment  in  the  three  Macedonian  vilayets,  leaving  out  of  ac- 
count the  cases  of  persons  executed  en  masse,  arrested  and  assaulted,  among  whom 
were  dozens  killed  or  mutilated.  Adding  them  in,  Mr.  Pavlov,  brought  his  total 
up  to  4,913.  To  this  number  were  still  to  be  added  4,060  who  had  taken  ref- 
uge in  Bulgaria  or  fled  among  the  mountains  to  escape  from  the  Turkish 
authorities. 

The  year  1910  was  decisive  in  the  sense  of  affording  definite  proof  that  the 
regime  established  in  1908  was  not  tolerable.  The  regime  had  its  chance  of  jus- 
tifying itself  in  the  eyes  of  Europe  and  strengthening  its  position  in  relation  to 
its  own  subjects  and  to  the  neighboring  Balkan  States;  it  let  the  chance  go. 
From  that  time  the  fate  of  Turkey  in  Europe  was  decided,  beyond  appeal. 

This  was  also  the  end  of  the  attempts  at  autonomy  in  Macedonia.  To  real- 
ize this  autonomy  two  principal  conditions  were  required :  the  indivisibility  of  Tur- 
key and  a  sincere  desire  on  the  part  of  the  Turkish  government  to  introduce 
radical  reforms  based  on  decentralization.  No  idea  was  less  acceptable  to  the 
"Committee  of  Union  and  Progress"  than  this  of  decentralization,  since  it  was 
the  watchword  of  the  rival  political  organization.  Thenceforward  any  hope  of 
improving  the  condition  of  the  Christian  populations  within  the  limits  of  the 
status  quo  became  illusory.  Those  limits  had  to  be  transcended.  Autonomy  was 
no  longer  possible.  Dismemberment  and  partition  had  to  be  faced. 


38 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 


3.     THE  ALLIANCE  AND  THE  TREATIES 

The  most  natural  solution  of  the  Balkan  imbroglio  appeared  to  be  the  crea- 
tion in  Macedonia  of  a  new  autonomy  or  independent  unity,  side  by  side  with  the 
other  unities  realized  in  Bulgaria,  Greece,  Servia  and  Montenegro,  all  of  which 
countries  had  previously  been  liberated,  thanks  to  Russian  or  European  inter- 
vention. But  this  solution  had  become  impossible,  owing  first  to  the  incapacity 
of  the  Turkish  government,  and  then  to  the  rival  pretensions  of  the  three  neigh- 
boring States  to  this  or  that  part  of  the  Macedonian  inheritance.  Mr.  Dehn  has 
tried  to  show  on  a  map  the  result  of  this  confusion  of  rival  claims  (see  his  sche- 


Boundaries  of  1912 
Seryia/i  Aspiration* 

•••••••    Bulgarian. » 

XXXXX>    Rumanian 
Greek 


After  Dehn 


Tk.WonrtJ>  del. 


matic  map).1  There  was  hardly  any  part  of  the  territory  of  Turkey  in  Europe 
which  was  not  claimed  by  at  least  two  competitors.  These  views  on  the  inherit- 
ance of  the  "Sick  Man"  and  for  the  realization  of  "great  national  ideas"  in  the 
shape  of  a  "Great"  Servia,  a  "Great"  Greece,  or  a  "Great"  Bulgaria,  made  any 
united  action  on  the  part  of  these  little  States  for  their  common  ends  impossible. 
In  theory  every  one  accepted  the  opinion  that  they  must  act  together,  that  the 
Balkans  ought  to  belong  to  the  Balkan  peoples,  and  that  the  great  neighboring 


1This  schematic  map  is  borrowed  from  the  little  book  by  Mr.  Paul  Dehn,  Die  Volker 
Sudeuropas  und  ihre  politischen  Probleme.  Halle,  1909;  in  the  Angewandte  Geographic 
Series. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN   WARS  39 

Powers  who  might  weaken  or  enslave  the  little  Balkan  States,  must  be  kept  off. 
In  practice,  however,  the  opposite  course  was  adopted.  Each  courted  Russia  or 
Austria,  in  turn,  sometimes  even  both  at  the  same  time,  first  one  and  then  the 
other,  with  a  view  to  opposing  his  neighbors  and  securing  the  prospect  of  his 
own  country's  hegemony. 

Russia  and  Austria  for  their  part  naturally  pursued  their  own  interests  in 
the  Balkans, — interests  that  were  by  no  means  identical.  Geography  and  eth- 
nography have  divided  the  Balkans  into  two  spheres  of  influence,  the  Eastern 
and  the  Western,  the  Servian  and  the  Bulgarian  spheres.  Diplomatic  history 
has  made  them  into  the  Austrian  and  the  Russian  spheres  of  influence,  hence 
two  opposing  pulls — the  "German  pull"  from  North  to  South,  and  the  "Slav 
pull"  from  East  to  West.  The  plain  of  the  Vardar,  which  divides  Macedonia 
into  two  parts,  was  destined  to  be  the  arena  where  the  two  influences  met  and 
battled.  Russia  traced  the  limits  of  its  zone  of  influence  in  the  treaty  of  San 
Stefano  in  1878 — the  whole  of  Macedonia  forming  part  of  Bulgaria  indivisible — 
the  tsielo  coupna  Boulgaria.  Austrian  policy  has  also  had  its  treaties,  concluded 
to  countervail  the  Russian  pull  in  the  shape  of  the  secret  treaties  of  1881  and 
1889,  made  with  King  Milan — the  Servian  King — who  for  his  part  was  promised 
the  plain  of  the  Vardar,  and  the  Western  half  of  Macedonia,  on  condition  of 
Servia's  renouncing  its  intentions  upon  the  Adriatic,  its  "Pan-Servian"  tenden- 
cies, that  is,  of  consenting  to  the  annexation  of  the  Sandjak  of  Bosnia  and 
Herzegovina,  and  finally  all  the  Servian-speaking  countries,  as  far  as  Zagreb. 

Looked  at  from  this  general  point  of  view,  the  idea  of  a  Balkan  alliance  was 
contrary  to  the  idea  of  partition,  since  alliance  was  the  instrument  of  independ- 
ence, the  means  to  the  realization  of  the  idea  of  "the  Balkans  for  the  Balkan 
peoples,"  while  partition  subserved  the  ambitions  of  the  great  neighboring  powers. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  those  who  first  conceived  the  idea  of  alliance  were  as  far  as 
possible  remote  from  that  of  partition.  They  were  the  idealistic  youth  of  1870, 
of  whom  we  have  spoken  above,  and  in  their  minds  a  "Yougo-Slav  Federation" 
was  a  veritable  union  of  the  free  and  independent  Slav  democracies.  Nor  was 
the  idea  of  partition  clearly  present  to  the  mind  of  the  first  great  politician  who 
tried  to  realize  a  Yougo-Slav  Federation  under  Servian  hegemony,  Prince  Mi- 
chel Obrenovits.  On  the  eve  of  his  violent  death  he  was  in  treaty  with  Greece, 
Roumania,  Montenegro  and  the  revolutionary  "apostles"  of  still  subject  Bulga- 
ria, for  the  preparation  of  common  strife  against  Turkey.  What  was  the  use  of 
partition  since  there  was  the  absolute  property  of  each  to  be  taken?  It  is  true 
that  with  the  Slav  family  itself  there  was  by  no  means  complete  unanimity  in 
the  idea  of  alliance  without  partition.  There  were  some  Bulgarians,  and  those 
the  most  far  sighted,  who  protested.  Why  ally  against  Turkey  when  whatever 
was  taken  from  the  Ottoman  Empire  was  at  the  same  time  taken  from  the  Bul- 
garian people  as  a  whole?  But  for  these  latter  the  reply  was  taken  from  Tur- 
key, which  was  trying  the  patience  of  the  giaours  even  when  they  desired  to  be 


40  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

loyal;  second  from  the  young  Bulgarian  revolutionaries,  crying,  with  the  voice 
of  their  best  representative,  Liouben  Karavelov,  the  doyen  of  Bulgarian  litera- 
ture— "First  of  all  we  must  have  union,  union,  union- — and  when  we  are  free 
each  shall  have  what  belongs  to  him." 

A  remarkable  light  is  thrown  by  recent  events  upon  these  disputes  at  the  end 
of  the  sixties.  Neither  the  idea  of  alliance  nor  the  conflicting  claims  which  ap- 
peared at  the  same  time  disappeared  in  the  fifty  years  that  lie  between  us  and 
Prince  Michel's  first  attempts.  He  was  slain  in  1868  by  assassins.  "Thy 
thought  shall  not  perish" — so  it  runs  on  his  tombstone.  It  has,  in  truth,  not  per- 
ished; but  it  has  become  more  complex.  Mutual  rivalries  became  more  acute  as 
the  area  to  be  partitioned  became  more  confined  while  still  leaving  something  to 
partition. 

"England's  responsibility"  in  these  new  complications  and  difficulties  has 
been  set  forth  by  the  Duke  of  Argyll:1  we,  therefore,  need  not  linger  over  the 
blow  struck  at  the  idea  of  a  federation  of  the  Balkan  nationalities  when  Bulgaria — 
one  and  indivisible— according  to  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano, — was  divided  into 
three  by  the  Treaty  of  Berlin.  The  whole  course  of  succeeding  events  was  the 
result  of  this  grave  error.  The  most  recent  events  lie  there  in  germ. 

The  reunion  to  free  Bulgaria  of  the  still  vassal  Oriental  Roumelia,  and  as 
the  immediate  consequence  thereof,  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  war  of  1885,  the  grow- 
ing rivalries  between  the  nationalities  in  a  still  subject  Macedonia,  the  new 
propaganda  of  the  secondary  nationalities,  the  isolation  of  Greece  in  its  1897 
attempt,  the  fetishism  of  the  status  quo,  mitigated  and  corrected  as  it  was  by 
the  intrigues  of  the  Powers,  the  miscarriage  of  the  hypocritical  plan  of  reforms 
in  Macedonia  in  1907-1908,  the  intermezzo  of  the  Turkish  revolution  with  its 
failure  to  solve  an  insoluble  problem,  then  the  greatness  and  decline  of  the 
Balkan  "alliance" — all  were  the  natural  results  of  the  mistake  of  Berlin, — a  mis- 
take which  now  everybody  sees  without  the  power  to  correct. 

This  same  series  of  events  has  put  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  normal  devel- 
opment of  the  highly  national  conception  of  an  alliance  between  the  Balkan  peo- 
ples, has  turned  it  aside  from  its  true  aim,  that  of  preparing  the  way  for  feder- 
ation; and  by  informing  it  with  an  alien  egoism  and  mania  have  delayed  its  de- 
velopment and  brought  it  prematurely  to  an  end.  Any  judgment  of  men  and 
events  as  they  are  today  must  take  into  account  all  this  past,  and  not  lay  to  the 
charge  of  the  present  the  results  of  a  negligence  which  goes  back  for  decades. 

The  idea  of  Balkan  alliance  has  come  into  life  in  our  time  with  a  signifi- 
cance quite  different  from  that  which  it  possessed  thirty  or  forty  years  ago.  It 
is  no  longer  the  young  Slav  enthusiasts'  dream  of  a  free  federation  of  Balkan 
democracies.  It  is  no  longer  the  nationalists  and  Pan-Slav  philosphers'  notion  of 
a  Russian  moral  hegemony  with  Constantinople  as  its  political  center.  The  first 


1See  his  book  Our  Responsibility  for  Turkey. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN   WARS  41 

of  these  dreams  was  slain  by  the  rivalry  of  the  Balkan  States ;  the  second  by  their 
love  of  independence.  The  Balkan  alliance  in  its  later  phase  was  but  a  tool  em- 
ployed by  local  policy  encouraged  by  Russia,  and  directed,  under  the  inspiration 
of  Russian  diplomacy,  against  Germanic  pretensions,  or  in  so  far  as  advantage 
was  taken  of  the  device  by  Balkan  statesmen  against  the  invasions  of  Turkish 
"Ottomanism"  and  Athenian  ambition  towards  autonomy.  Alliance  in  this  latest 
phase  inevitably  implied  partition  as  an  essential  condition;  the  means  being 
war  with  Turkey,  the  final  end  the  conquest  of  Turkey  in  Europe. 

The  modern  history  of  the  alliance  might  start  at  the  point  where  Mr.  Bour- 
chier1  begins  in  his  excellent  articles  on  the  Balkan  League,  that  is  to  say,  with 
the  attempt  of  the  Greek  Minister,  Mr.  Tricoupis,  in  1891,  who  openly  proposed 
to  Belgrade  and  Sofia  the  partition  of  Turkey  in  Europe  on  the  basis  of  a  treaty 
in  which  the  future  frontiers  of  the  Balkan  States  were  to  be  exactly  determined 
in  advance.  To  speak  of  such  a  plan  to  King  Milan  and  to  Stamboulov,  was  to 
communicate  it  to  the  Ballplatz  at  Vienna  and  to  the  Sublime  Porte.  The  pour- 
parlers did  not  get  beyond  a  mere  exchange  of  amiable  courtesies.  Austria  Hun- 
gary had  just  renewed  the  treaty  with  King  Milan  which  led  to  the  fratricidal 
Serbo-Bulgarian  war  (1889  to  1895).  Some  years  later  she  was  to  sign  a  secret 
convention  with  Roumania.  In  the  event  of  a  common  war  with  Bulgaria,  Rou- 
mania  was  to  receive  a  portion  of  Bulgarian  territory.  It  is  the  very  territory, 
promised  by  Austria,  which  Roumania  has  just  been  given  without  war.  In 
1897,  during  the  Graeco-Turkish  war,  Mr.  Deliannis  renewed  the  proposals  of 
Tricoupis.  But  his  partition  formula,  repeated  so  often  since,  and  not  even  now 
wholly  renounced  by  the  Greeks,  was  not  to  the  Bulgarians'  taste.  They  pre- 
ferred negotiating  with  the  Porte  for  new  concessions  for  their  churches  and 
schools  in  Macedonia,  to  risking  taking  part  in  an  ill-prepared  and  ill-conducted 
war.  Soon  after  (1901)  Austria  Hungary  brought  about  the  Graeco-Roumanian 
rapprochement  which,  together  with  the  Austro-Servian  treaty  and  the  Austro- 
Roumanian  convention,  finally  "enclosed"  Bulgaria  and  threatened  to  paralyze 
its  action  in  Macedonia.  A  Balkan  alliance  seemed  as  far  remote  as  possible. 

All  the  same  the  web  spun  with  such  pains  was  quickly  to  be  broken.  The 
revolution  of  1904  in  Macedonia  made  the  question  an  international  one.  Walla- 
chian  propagandism  and  Greek  "conversions"  in  Macedonia  led  to  a  diplomatic 
rupture  between  Greece  and  Roumania  (1903).  The  murder  of  King  Alexandre 
Obrenovits  and  the  return  of  the  Karageorgevits  dynasty  to  Belgrade  (1903) 
emancipated  Servia  from  Austrian  influence.  The  natural  alternatives  were 
either  a  rapprochement  with  Russia  or  the  renaissance  of  the  Yougo-Slav  al- 
liance. The  young  generation  in  Servia  and  Bulgaria  went  further  and  became 
once  more  enthusiastic  for  the  federation  idea.  Writers,  artists,  students  in  Bel- 


1The  Balkan  League — The  London  Times,  June  4,  5,  6,  11,  13.  Use  has  been  made  of 
these  articles  but  the  brief  historical  account  which  follows  has  been  based  on  the  Com- 
mission's own  information. 


42  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

grade  and  Sofia  exchanged  visits.  Diplomatists  followed  suit.  By  1904  people 
in  Belgrade  were  discussing  a  scheme  for  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance  as 
a  means  of  securing  the  autonomy  of  Old  Servia  and  of  Macedonia  as  far  as 
possible  by  peaceful  means,  but  in  case  of  extremity,  by  force  of  arms.  The 
names  of  those  who  took  part  in  these  pourparlers  will  reappear  in  1911.  They 
were  Mr.  Pachitch,  at  whose  house  secret  conversations  went  on ;  Milovane  Milo- 
vanovits,  late  minister  of  Foreign  Affairs ;  Dimitri  Risov,  a  Macedonian  revolu- 
tionary who  had  become  a  diplomatist  without  losing  his  ardent  devotion  to  the 
cause;  Mr.  Kessaptchiev  at  that  time  specially  sent  to  discuss  the  alliance.  But 
difficulties  arose  as  soon  as  the  frontiers  began  to  be  spoken  of.  The  Servians 
gave  their  adhesion  in  principle  only,  to  propose  the  very  next  day  a  geographical 
interpretation  of  the  term  "Old  Servia,"  which  extended  it  to  cover  the  whole  of 
the  Sandjak.  The  Bulgarians  regarded  these  claims  as  exorbitant;  and  finally 
after  vain  disputes  lasting  three  days,  the  idea  of  an  offensive  alliance  was  given 
up.  On  April  12/25,  1904,  a  defensive  alliance  was  however  concluded.  But 
this  treaty,  far  too  vague  and  general  in  its  terms,  had  no  practical  result,  thanks 
to  the  indiscretion  of  a  Servian  official  who  was  also  the  correspondent  of  the 
Neue  Freie  Presse.  The  treaty  was  immediately  divulged  and  seeds  of  distrust 
consequently  implanted  in  the  minds  of  the  allies.  The  Servians  regarded  the 
treaty  as  annulled  after  the  Bulgarian  declaration  of  independence  was  made  in 
1908  without  consulting  Servia,  and  greatly  to  the  detriment  of  Servian  national 
policy,  which  was  then  passing  through  a  critical  phase,  owing  to  the  annexation 
of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  by  Austria  Hungary.  The  Servians  accused  the  Bul- 
garians of  profiting  by  their  losses  to  improve  their  own  international  position  in- 
stead of  coming  to  their  assistance.  Old  distrust  was  thus  about  to  revive  when 
Russian  diplomacy  took  up  the  alliance  idea  again.  The  Russian  diplomatists 
took  the  promises  of  a  Young  Turkish  regeneration  seriously,  and  proposed  a 
universal  Balkan  alliance  with  a  free  and  constitutionally  governed  Turkey  as  a 
member.  They  wanted  an  alliance  facing  towards  the  Danube  rather  than  the 
Bosphorus.  Balkan  diplomacy  knew  well  enough  that  the  "Sick  Man"  was  in- 
curable ;  but  the  chance  was  seized.  It  is  true  that  here  again  the  old  difficulties 
about  partition  rose.  In  1909  Mr.  Milovanovits  vainly  proposed  the  cession  of 
Uskub  and  Koumanovo  to  Servia.  In  1910  conferences  were  held  at  St.  Peters- 
burg with  Mr.  Milovanovits  and  Mr.  Malinov,  which,  however,  did  not  succeed 
in  arriving  at  any  result.  Bulgaria  was  by  no  means  disposed  to  sanction  the  Ser- 
vian tendencies  favored  by  Russian  diplomacy,  even  in  the  highly  general  form 
of  a  possible  extension  of  Old  Servia,  properly  so-called,  towards  the  south. 

All  the  same  in  1910,  as  we  know,  it  became  clear  to  all  the  world  that  the 
Young  Turk  policy  of  "Ottomanizing"  the  nationalities  by  assimilation  was 
going  to  lead  to  catastrophe.  Growing  pressure  on  Bulgarians  and  Greeks 
in  Turkey  finally  brought  these  enemies  together.  Mr.  Venizelos,  since  1910 
head  of  the  Athenian  cabinet,  as  early  as  October  proposed  an  agreement  to 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS  43 

Sofia.  Once  more  no  agreement  could  be  reached  on  the  delimitation  of  spheres 
of  influence.  The  Bulgarians  were  unwilling  to  hand  over  Kavala,  Serres,  Vodena, 
Castoria,  Fiorina  to  the  Greeks,  in  accordance  with  the  old  "Deliannis  formula." 
But  the  condition  of  things  in  Macedonia  made  an  understanding  a  matter  of 
necessity.  The  only  thing  to  do  was  to  conclude  an  agreement.  The  heads  of  the 
Christian  churches  in  Constantinople  had  to  make  similar  representations  to  the 
Ottoman  government,  without  waiting  for  any  understanding.  At  Sofia  discus- 
sions began  as  to  how  an  understanding  was  to  be  arrived  at,  and  a  joint  system- 
atic protest  was  made  in  defence  of  the  religious  and  educational  privileges 
granted  in  common  to  the  Christian  communities  by  the  ancient  firmans  of  the 
sultans  and  by  international  treaties. 

At  Sofia  the  pourparlers  dragged  on  throughout  the  Malinov  administration. 
When  Mr.  Guechov,  in  March,  1910,  succeeded  Mr.  Malinov  as  head  of  the  Cabi- 
net, he  stopped  them.  Then  Mr.  Venizelos  proposed  to  Mr.  Guechov,  under  the 
seal  of  secrecy,  in  March,  1911,  not  merely  an  agreement  to  defend  the  privileges 
of  the  Christians  in  Turkey,  but  a  defensive  alliance,  "envisaging  the  case  of  an 
attack"  on  one  of  the  contracting  parties.  No  reply  was  made  to  this  proposition, 
which  was  kept  strictly  secret,  since  the  Cretan  difficulties  might  provoke  a  war 
in  which  Bulgaria  had  no  desire  to  take  part.  The  event  which  led  Bulgaria  to 
consider  the  necessity  of  a  Balkan  alliance  in  a  yet  more  serious  light  was  the 
beginning  of  the  Turco-Italian  war  at  the  end  of  September,  1911.  When  the 
Italian  ultimatum  was  issued,  Bulgarian  statesmen  were  on  holiday;  Czar  Ferdi- 
nand and  his  first  Minister  were  at  Vichy.  Milovanovits  was  watching  at  his 
post.  B.  Risov,  Th.  Theodorov  and  he  discussed  the  project  of  an  alliance  at 
Belgrade,  Vienna  and  Sofia.  Mr.  Guechov  hastened  to  return.  Mr.  Milovanovits 
met  him  at  the  station  at  Belgrade,  got  into  his  carriage  and  between  Belgrade  and 
the  little  station  of  Liapovo,  the  bases  of  an  alliance  were  laid  down  in  the  course 
of  a  two  hours'  conversation.  For  the  first  time  a  Bulgarian  minister  recog- 
nized the  necessity  and  possibility  of  territorial  concession  in  Macedonia — Uskub 
and  Koumanovo. 

It  might  have  been  foreseen  that  public  opinion  in  Bulgaria  would,  as  inva- 
riably, be  against  any  such  transaction.  Rather  Macedonia  autonomous  as  a  whole 
under  Turkish  suzerainty  than  independent  on  condition  of  partition, — such  had 
always  been  the  Bulgarian  point  of  view.  Even  in  1910,  Mr.  Malinov,  as  we  have 
pointed  out,  prepared  to  wait  rather  than  make  concessions.  So  now  Guechov, 
once  returned  to  Sofia,  again  decided  to  temporize.  In  December,  Milovanovits 
renewed  the  alliance  proposal ;  but  after  ten  days  without  a  reply  he  had  to  modify 
his  proposition.  Then  and  not  until  then  did  the  Bulgarian  government  decide 
to  treat.  The  pourparlers  lasted  all  winter,  and  the  treaty  was  concluded  be- 
tween February  29  and  March  13,  1912. 

In  this  treaty,  which  was  kept  secret,  and  of  which  the  text  was  published 
later  by  Le  Matin,1  the  fundamental  point  was  the  delimitation  of  the  line  of  par- 

iMonday,  November  24,  1913. 


44  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

tition  "beyond  which"  Servia  agreed  "to  formulate  no  territorial  claim."  A  highly 
detailed  map  of  this  frontier  was  annexed  to  the  treaty.1  Bulgarian  diplomatists 
still  wished  to  keep  an  open  door  for  themselves.  That  is  why  they  left  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  concessions  demanded  to  the  Czar  of  Russia.  "Bulgaria 
agrees  to  accept  this  frontier,"  they  added,  "if  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  who  shall 
be  requested  to  act  as  final  arbiter  in  this  question,  pronounces  in  favor  of  the 
line."  Their  idea  was  that  the  Emperor  might  still  adjudge  to  them  the  "dis- 
puted zone"  they  were  in  the  act  of  ceding,  between  the  frontier  marked  on  the 
map  and  Old  Servia,  properly  so-called,  "to  the  north  and  west  of  Char-Planina." 
"It  goes  without  saying,"  the  treaty  added,  "that  the  two  contracting  parties  un- 
dertake to  accept  as  definitive  the  frontier  line  which  the  Emperor  of  Russia  may 
have  found,  within  the  limits  indicated  below,  most  consonant  with  the  rights  and 
interests  of  the  two  parties."  Evidently  "within  the  limits  indicated  below"  meant 
between  Char-Planina  and  the  line  marked  on  the  map,  "beyond  which  Servia 
agreed  to  formulate  no  territorial  claim."  That  was  the  straightforward  mean- 
ing of  the  treaty,  afterwards  contested  by  the  Servians.  The  line  of  partition 
of  which  the  treaty  spoke  corresponded  fully  with  the  ethnographic  conclusions 
of  the  learned  geographer,  Mr.  Tsviyits;  conclusions  which  made  a  profound 
impression  on  the  Czar  Ferdinand  at  the  time  of  his  interview  with  Mr.  Tsviyits. 
It  was  these  conclusions  probably  which  made  the  Czar  decide  to  accept  the 
compromise.2  Mr.  Tsviyits  was  also  the  first  to  communicate  to  the  world,  in 
his  article  of  November,  1912,  in  the  Review  of  Reviews,  the  frontier  established 
by  the  treaty.8  The  reason  why  Bulgarian  diplomatists  decided  on  making  a 
concession  so  little  acceptable  to  public  opinion  is  now  clear.  They  did  more. 
After  deciding  on  eventual  partition  they  reverted  to  the  idea  of  autonomy  and 
laid  it  down  that  partition  was  only  to  take  place  in  case  the  organization  of  the 
conquered  countries  "as  a  distinct  autonomous  province,"  should  be  found 
"impossible"  in  the  "established  conviction"  of  both  parties.  Up  to  the  "liquida- 


*It  is  reproduced  here  from  a  reduced  and  simplified  copy  published  in  the  Echo  de  Bul- 
garie  of  June  7/20,  1913. 

2See  Mr.  Tsviyits'  ethnographic  map,  published  in  his  pamphlet  The  Annexation  of 
Bosnia  and  the  Servian  Question,  1909.  The  map  annexed  to  the  treaty  of  Feb.  29  (March 
13),  1912,  differs  from  it  to  the  advantage  of  Servia  in  the  western  region,  but  corresponds 
generally  with  it  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  frontier  agreed  upon. 

3Mr.  Tsviyits'  article  has  appeared  in  a  Servian  translation,  but  at.  that  time  Servian 
claims  had  already  increased  and  the  pamphlet  was  banned.  In  a  second  edition,  adopted 
by  the  "Information  Bureau,"  the  passage  describing  the  frontiers  was  simply  omitted.  The 
omitted  passage  runs  as  follows :  "The  Southern  frontier  of  Old  Servia,  or  the  line  dividing 
the  Bulgarian  and  Servian  spheres  of  interest  (starts  from  the  Bulgarian  frontier,  near 
Kustendil,  by  the  line  of  partition  between  the  rivers  Ptchinia  and  Kriva-Reka,  leaving  Kriva- 
Palnika  and  Kratovo  in  the  Bulgarian  sphere  and  Uskub  and  Koumanovo  in  the  Servian. 
The  frontier  then  crosses  the  Ovtche-Pole,  by  the  line  of  division  between  Bregalnitsa  and 
Ptchinia,  and  passes  the  Vardar,  to  the  north  of  Veles.  Thence  it  goes  over  the  slopes  of  the 
Yagoupitsa  mountains,  and  along  the  ulterior  line  of  division,  reaches  the  Baba  mountain 
as  far  as  Lake  Okhrida,  so  that  Prilepe,  Krouchevo  and  the  town  of  Okhrida  are  in  the 
Bulgarian  sphere  and  Strouga,  Debar  and  Tetovo  in  the  Servian.)  Old  Servia  issues, 
through  a  narrow  belt,  on  the  Adriatic  near  Scutari,  Alessio  and  (perhaps)  Durazzo.  [Pas- 
sages within  parentheses  omitted.] 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS 


45 


ranja     ,'' B  U  L&JV  R  I  A 


^ezf^3j6^"5i      Arivarfecna- 
fA,i.,™m'  MS^Ostnc  Pola-n'b^ 


•"y  Jt*AAJLVVK-UL«JLV/^.x^U.  1     *-'  fKi*-*4-"     Jk  ^^         ]          £ 

rrnSfer ^^jK^% 


CONTESTED  REGIONS 

according  to  tlie  map  annexed 
TO  THE  TREATY  OF  ALLIANCE 
Scale    of      I  :    1.500.000 


T.  U'einreb 


46  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

tion,"  the  occupied  countries  were  to  be  regarded  as  "falling  under  common 
dominion — condominium."  Finally  the  treaty  was  to  remain  defensive  purely, 
until  the  two  parties  "find  themselves  in  agreement"  on  "undertaking  common 
military  action."  This  "action"  was  to  "be  undertaken  solely  in  the  event  of 
Russia's  not  opposing  it,"  and  the  consefnt  of  Russia  was  to  be  obligatory. 
Turkey  had  been  expressly  designated  as  the  objective  of  "action"  in  the  cases 
forecast,  but  included  was  "any  one  among  the  Great  Powers  which  should 
attempt  to  annex  any  portion  whatsoever  of  the  territories  of  the  peninsula." 
Such  were  the  precautions  and  provisions  designed  to  guarantee  Bulgarian 
diplomatists  against  abuse.  All,  however,  were  to  fall  away  at  the  first  breath 
of  reality. 

Sofia  has  been  credited  with  a  secondary  interest  in  the  Graeco-Bulgarian 
agreement  proffered  by  Venizelos  in  April,  1911.  Since  1897  the  Greek  army 
had  been  considered  almost  a  negligible  quantity,  and  the  advance  made  under 
French  instruction  was  hardly  known.  But  the  Greek  navy  was  needed  to  cut 
Turkey's  communication  with  Anatolia  via  the  ./Egean  Sea,  and  thus  prevent  the 
transport  of  troops  to  Macedonia.  Thus  as  soon  as  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  alliance 
had  been  concluded  in  February,  conferences  with  Greece  were  entered  upon. 
The  Greeks  proposed  to  the  Bulgarians  to  discuss  the  question  of  future  frontiers. 
Since  Greek  aid  was  not  rated  high  at  Sofia,  the  Bulgarians  were  not  inclined  to 
make  sacrifices,  the  more  because  of  designs  on  Salonica.  On  this  point 
previous  negotiations  had  made  it  abundantly  clear  that  the  Greeks,  so 
far  from  yielding  would  again  propose  their  unacceptable  frontier.  It  was  there- 
fore unhappily  decided  to  leave  the  war  to  settle  the  question,  with  a  secret 
intention  of  being  the  first  to  reach  the  desired  spot.  As  for  the  alliance,  it  was 
concluded  on  a  "purely  defensive"  basis  with  the  promise  "of  lending  the  agree- 
ment no  kind  of  aggressive  tendency."1  The  principal  object  appeared  to  be  the 
"peaceful  co-existence  of  the  different  nationalities  in  Turkey,  on  the  basis  of 
real  and  actual  political  equality  and  respect  of  rights  accruing  from  treaties  or 
otherwise  conceded  to  the  Christian  nationalities  of  the  Empire."  But  it  was 
foreseen  that  a  "systematic  attempt"  on  these  rights  on  the  part  of  Turkey  might 
as  readily  be  the  casus  fcederis  as  a  direct  attack  on  the  territories  of  the  con- 
tracting parties.  It  should  be  added  that  the  expression  "rights  accruing  from 
treaties"  was  inserted  in  the  text  on  the  insistence  of  the  Bulgarian  diplomats, 
who  intended  by  this  reference  to  treaties,  Article  23  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin, ».  e., 
Macedonian  autonomy.  Clearly  in  the  hour  of  the  conclusion  of  this  treaty, 
May  16/29,  1912,  complete  vagueness  prevailed  as  to  eventual  "action."  The 
only  thing  which  was  clear  was  that  Bulgaria  was  not  going  to  make  war  on 
Turkey  about  Crete.  To  this  end  a  declaration  had  been  added  to  the  treaty 
which  merely  bound  Bulgaria  to  "benevolent  neutrality"  in  the  event  of 
war  breaking  out  "because  of  the  admission  of  Cretan  deputies  to  the  Greek 
parliament." 


lfrhe  text  of  the  Grseco-Bulgarian  treaty  was  published  by  Le  Matin  November  26,  1913. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS  47 

The  Serbo-Bulgarian  and  Graeco-Bulgarian  treaties  concluded,  the  King  of 
Montenegro  came  on  the  scene  in  his  turn.  Nicholas  was  always  ready  to  take 
part  in  any  combination  of  the  Balkan  States  against  Turkey.  He  had  spoken 
of  it  to  Russia  in  1888;  he  renewed  his  proposition  at  the  Russian  Embassy  in 
Constantinople  in  July,  1911.  When  the  Turco-Italian  war  began,  in  September, 
he  was  the  first  to  propose  common  military  action  on  the  part  of  Servia,  Bul- 
garia, Greece  and  Montenegro.  An  agreement  was  made  with  Bulgaria  in  April, 
1912,  and  with  Greece  somewhat  later.  Belgrade  remained.  It  was  not  on  good 
terms  with  Cettigne,  partly  because  of  the  patriotic  rivalry  between  the  two 
Servian  States  (each  of  which  aspired  to  the  role  of  "Piemont")  ;  partly  be- 
cause of  anti-dynastic  intrigues  supposed  to  be  going  on  on  either  side  and  partly 
because  of  the  reactionary  regime  of  Nicholas,  which  drove  all  the  educated 
youth  of  the  country  to  emigration  and  conspiracy  abroad.  Bulgarian  diplomats 
acted  as  intermediaries.  Mr.  Danev  communicated  to  the  Vienna  Zeit  an  amusing 
account  of  the  way  in  which  the  last  stone  of  the  Balkan  alliance  (which  Russia 
wanted  to  build  up  against  Austria  Hungary)  was  placed  at  the  end  of  May  in 
the  Hofburg  at  Vienna.  None  of  these  treaties  however  became  effective  until 
the  end  of  September,  after  a  series  of  events  in  Turkey  which  ended  by  seriously 
threatening  the  very  existence  of  the  nationalities  in  Macedonia.  These  events 
opened  in  the  spring  of  1912  with  a  revolt  in  Albania,  a  revolt  which  had  been 
foreseen  and  taken  into  consideration  by  the  enemies  of  Turkey.  In  summer  the 
revolt  bore  fruit  which  exceeded  all  expectation.  The  cabinet  resigned,  the 
chamber  was  dissolved,  the  executive  committee  of  the  party  of  "Union  and 
Progress,"  threatened  with  complete  defeat,  was  compelled  to  grant  the  Alba- 
nians all  they  asked  in  order  to  stop  the  movement  in  Constantinople,  a  movement 
which  the  discontented  army  refused  to  prevent.  This  demonstration  of  Turkish 
weakness  encouraged  the  new  allies,  the  more  so  that  the  promises  of  Albanian 
autonomy,  covering  the  four  vilayets  of  Macedonia  and  Old  Servia,  directly 
threatened  the  Christian  nationalities  with  extermination.  The  Servians 
hastened  to  oppose  the  plan  of  a  "greater  Albania"  by  their  plan  for  the  partition 
of  Turkey  in  Europe  among  the  Balkan  States  into  four  spheres  of  influence. 
Counting  on  the  possibility  of  European  intervention  the  organization  of  the 
autonomous  provinces  based  on  the  ethnographic  principle  was  undertaken  with 
a  minimum  of  success.  But  Europe  did  not  "find  itself." 

The  proposal  made  on  August  14  by  Mr.  Berchtold,  to  assist  Turkey  in  ex- 
tending "decentralization"  to  the  Christian  nationalities  was  no  more  than  a  trial 
move,  adroitly  designed  as  a  means  of  feeling  the  ground.  Russia  replied  by  an 
exhortation  to  the  allies  to  abstain  from  aggressive  action  of  any  kind,  and  the 
endeavor  to  detach  Bulgaria  from  Servia  and  Servia  from  Bulgaria.  The  reply 
of  the  allies,  prepared  with  the  utmost  secrecy,  was  to  conclude  a  series  of  mili- 
tary conventions,  complementary  to  the  alliances,  which  did  this  time  anticipate 
and  prepare  for  war. 


48  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

The  Bulgarian  military  convention,  foreshadowed  by  the  treaty,  was  signed 
as  early  as  April  29/May  12.  Bulgaria  undertook  in  case  of  war  to  mobilize 
200,000  men;  Servia  150,000 — minimum  figures,  since  there  could  be  no  thought 
of  conquering  Turkey  with  an  army  of  350,000  men.  Of  these  200,000  men, 
Bulgaria  was  to  dispatch  half  to  Macedonia,  and  half  to  Thrace.  At  the  same 
time  the  convention  took  into  account  the  possibility  of  Austria  Hungary's 
marching  upon  Servia.  In  that  case  Bulgaria  undertook  to  send  200,000  men 
to  Servia's  assistance. 

The  basis  of  the  Graeco-Bulgarian  military  convention  was  different;  it  was 
concluded  almost  on  the  eve  of  general  mobilization,  September  13/26.  Bul- 
garia promised,  in  case  of  war,  an  effective  army  300,000  strong ;  Greece,  120,000. 
Bulgaria  undertook  to  take  the  offensive  "with  an  important  part  of  its  army" 
in  the  three  Macedonian  vilayets ;  but  in  case  Servia  should  take  part  in  the  war 
with  at  least  120,000  men,  "Bulgaria  might  employ  the  whole  of  its  military 
forces  in  Thrace."  Now  that  real  war  was  about  to  begin  and  the  main  Turkish 
force  was  directed  hither,  it  was  high  time  to  contemplate  war  in  Thrace  which 
had  been  left,  in  the  hypothetical  agreements,  to  Russia's  charge,  as  Mr.  Bourchier 
assumes.  This  made  it  necessary  to  change,  define  and  complete  the  military 
agreement  with  Servia  of  April  29/May  12.  The  document  was  now  more  than 
once  remodeled  in  consonance  with  new  agreements  arrived  at  between  the  heads 
of  the  General  Staff  of  the  two  armies — such  agreements  having  been  fore- 
shadowed in  Articles  4  and  13.  The  special  arrangement  of  June  19/July  2 
provides  that  the  necessary  number  of  troops  agreed  upon  might  be  transported 
from  the  Vardar  to  the  Maritza  and  vice  versa,  "if  the  situation  demands  it" 
On  August  23/September  5,  the  Bulgarians  demand  to  have  all  their  forces  for 
disposition  in  Thrace,  the  Servians  make  objections  and  no  agreement  is 
reached.  At  last,  three  days  after  the  Greek  military  convention  (September 
15/28),  an  understanding  was  arrived  at.  "The  whole  of  the  Bulgarian  army 
will  operate  in  the  valley  of  the  Maritza,  leaving  one  division  only  in  the  first 
days  on  the  Kustendil — Doupnitsa  line."  But  if  the  Servian  army  repulsed  the 
Turks  on  the  Uskub — Veles-Chtipe  line — and  advanced  southward,  the  Bulgarians 
might  recall  their  division  to  the  theater  of  the  Maritza  to  reinforce  their  armies, 
leaving  only  the  battalions  of  the  territorial  army  in  Macedonia."  Later,  as 
is  known,  it  was  the  Servians  who  sent  two  divisions  with  siege  artillery  to 
Adrianople.  The  Servians  were  later  to  declare  the  arrangements  made  by  the 
two  General  Staffs  forced  and  not  binding,  and  to  use  this  as  an  argument  for 
treaty  revision. 

While  making  their  final  dispositions,  the  allies  still  awaited  European  in- 
tervention in  Turkey.  In  vain.  Friends  only  gave  them  counsels  of  prudence. 
Enemies  were  not  sorry  to  see  the  allies  given  a  drubbing  by  the  Turks,  whom 
everybody  in  Europe  regarded  as  infinitely  their  superiors.  During  the  two 
weeks  in  which  final  decisions  were  being  made  in  Bulgaria,  Mr.  Sazonov  traveled 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN   WARS  49 

about  in  England  and  talked  about  Persia.  When  it  appeared  at  the  last  moment 
that  the  Balkan  States  were  going  to  act,  thanks  to  Mr.  Poincare  and  with  the 
conditional  assent  of  Mr.  Berchtold,  it  was  thought  advisable  to  issue,  September 
25 /October  8,  an  Austro-Russian  proclamation  to  the  effect  that  if  the  Powers 
disapproved  energetically  of  measures  contrary  to  peace,  they  would  take 
the  execution  of  reforms  in  hand,  subject  to  the  suzerainty  of  the  Sultan  and 
the  territorial  integrity  of  Turkey;  if  war  broke  out,  whatever  were  the  issue, 
they  would  not  permit  any  change  in  the  territorial  status  quo  of  Turkey  in 
Europe.  Alas !  while  the  reply  to  be  sent  to  this  note  was  under  discussion, 
King  Nicholas  of  Montenegro  declared  war  on  Turkey  (October  9)  ;  on  Sep- 
tember 30/October  13  the  allies  formally  demanded  Turkey's  consent  to  the 
autonomy  of  the  European  vilayets,  redivided  according  to  nationality.  On 
October  4/17,  Turkey  declared  war. 

If  it  be  now  asked  what  were  the  causes  of  the  first  Balkan  war,  three 
principal  ones  may  be  found.  First,  the  weakness  and  want  of  foresight  of 
Turkey,  on  the  verge  of  dissolution ;  second,  the  powerlessness  of  Europe  to  im- 
pose on  a  constitutional  Turkey  the  reforms  which  she  had  succeeded  in  intro- 
ducing into  an  absolute  Turkey,  and  third,  the  consciousness  of  increased  strength 
which  alliance  gave  to  the  Balkan  States,  each  with  a  national  mission  before  it, 
namely,  the  protection  of  the  men  of  its  race  and  religion  dwelling  in  Turkey, 
against  the  Ottomanization  policy  which  threatened  national  existence.  The 
first  two  reasons  made  the  war  possible  and  inevitable;  the  third  guaranteed  its 
success.  In  a  few  weeks  the  territories  of  Turkey  in  Europe  were  invaded  by 
the  allied  armies  and  the  whole  country  from  the  west  of  the  fortified  lines  of 
Tchataldja  and  the  Gallipoli  peninsula,  with  the  exception  of  Albania,  in  their 
hands  as  condominium.  This  was,  at  least,  the  principle  acknowledged  by  the 
Serbo-Bulgarian  treaty.  This  principle  of  the  condominium  had  to  be  reconciled 
with  the  fact  of  the  occupation  and  the  new  demands  that  rose  up,  the  conse- 
quences of  unexpected  success.  As  might  have  been  expected,  partition  was 
more  difficult  than  conquest.  Another  war,  the  conflict  for  the  "equilibrium," 
was  to  follow  on  the  first,  the  conflict  for  freedom. 

4.     THE  CONFLICT  BETWEEN  THE  ALLIES 

There  had  long  existed  germs  of  discord  among  the  Balkan  nationalities 
which  could  not  be  stifled  by  the  treaties  of  alliance  of  which  we  know.  Rather 
the  texts  of  these  treaties  created  fresh  misunderstandings  and  afforded  formal 
pretexts  to  cover  the  real  reasons  of  conflict.  There  was  but  one  means  which 
could  have  effectually  prevented  the  development  of  the  germs — to  maintain  the 
territorial  status  quo  of  Turkey  and  grant  autonomy  to  the  nationalities  without 
a  change  of  sovereignty.  This  could  not  have  been,  it  is  true,  a  definitive  solu- 
tion ;  it  could  only  be  a  delay,  a  stage,  but  a  stage  that  would  have  bridged  the 
transition.  In  default  of  an  issue  which  Turkey  rendered  impossible  by  its 


50  REPORT   OF  THE  BALKAN    COMMISSION 

errors,  Europe  by  its  too  protracted  patience  and  the  allies  by  their  success,  the 
change  was  too  abrupt.  It  produced  the  deplorable  results  we  are  to  study 
under  the  aspect  of  the  "excesses"  committed  by  the  different  nationalities  when 
reduced  to  an  elementary  struggle  for  existence  carried  out  by  the  most  primitive 
means. 

We  find  this  struggle  in  Macedonia  from  the  first  days  of  the  Servian  and 
Greek  occupation  onwards.  At  first  there  was  general  rejoicing  and  an  outburst 
of  popular  gratitude  towards  the  liberators.  The  Macedonian  revolutionaries 
themselves  had  foreseen  and  encouraged  this  feeling.  They  said  in  their  "proc- 
lamation to  our  brothers,"  published  by  the  delegates  of  the  twenty-five  Mace- 
donian confederacies  on  October  5/18,  i.  c.,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  war: 
"Brothers: — your  sufferings  and  your  pains  have  touched  the  heart  of  your 
kindred.  Moved  by  the  sacred  duty  of  fraternal  compassion,  they  come  to  your 
aid  to  free  you  from  the  Turkish  yoke.  In  return  for  their  sacrifice  they  desire 
nothing  but  to  reestablish  peace  and  order  in  the  land  of  our  birth.  Come  to 
meet  these  brave  knights  of  freedom  therefore  with  triumphal  crowns.  Cover 
the  way  before  their  feet  with  flowers  and  glory.  And  be  magnanimous  to  those 
who  yesterday  were  your  masters.  As  true  Christians,  give  them  not  evil  for 
evil.  Long  live  liberty!  Long  live  the  brave  army  of  liberation!"  In  fact  the 
Servian  army  entered  the  north  and  the  Greek  army  the  south  of  Macedonia, 
amid  cries  of  joy  from  the  population.  But  this  enthusiasm  for  the  liberators 
soon  gave  place  to  doubts,  then  to  disenchantment,  and  finally  was  converted  to 
hatred  and  despair.  The  Bulgarian  journal  published  at  Salonica,  Bulgarine, 
first  records  some  discouraging  cases  whose  number  was  swollen  by  the  presence 
of  certain  individuals,  chauvinists  of  a  peculiar  turn,  who  gave  offence  to  the 
national  sentiment  of  the  country  by  the  risks  they  ran.  "It  is  the  imperative 
duty  of  the  powers  in  occupation,"  said  the  journal,  "to  keep  attentive  watch  over 
the  behavior  of  irresponsible  persons."  Alas!  five  days  later  (November  20) 
the  journal  had  to  lay  it  down,  as  a  general  condition  of  the  stability  of  the 
alliance,  that  the  powers  in  occupation  should  show  toleration  to  all  nationalities 
and  refrain  from  treating  some  of  them  as  enemies.  Four  days  later  the  journal, 
instead  of  attacking  the  persons  responsible,  was  denouncing  the  powers  who 
"in  their  blind  chauvinism  take  no  account  of  the  national  sentiments  of  the 
people  temporarily  subject  to  them."  They  still,  however,  cherished  the  hope 
that  the  local  authorities  were  acting  without  the  knowledge  of  Belgrade.  The 
next  day  the  editor  wrote  his  leader  under  a  question  addressed  to  the  Allied 
Governments :  "Is  this  a  war  of  liberation  or  a  war  of  conquest?"  He  knew  the 
reply  well  enough ;  the  Greek  authorities  forbade  the  existence  of  this  Bulgarian 
paper  in  their  town  of  Salonica. 

The  illusion  of  the  inhabitants  likewise  disappeared  before  the  touch  of 
reality.  The  Servian  soldier,  like  the  Greek,  was  firmly  persuaded  that  in 
Macedonia  he  would  find  compatriots,  men  who  could  speak  his  language  and 
address  him  with  jivio  or  zito.  He  found  men  speaking  a  language  different 


ORIGIN  OF   THE  TWO   BALKAN   WARS  51 

from  his,  who  cried  hourrah!  He  misunderstood  or  did  not  understand  at  all. 
The  theory  he  had  learned  from  youth  of  the  existence  of  a  Servian  Macedonia 
and  a  Greek  Macedonia  naturally  suffered;  but  his  patriotic  conviction  that 
Macedonia  must  become  Greek  or  Servian,  if  not  so  already,  remained  unaf- 
fected. Doubtless  Macedonia  had  been  what  he  wanted  it  to  become  in  those 
times  of  Douchan  the  Strong  or  the  Byzantine  Emperors.  It  was  only  agita- 
tors and  propagandist  Bulgarians  who  instilled  into  the  population  the  idea  of 
being  Bulgarian.  The  agitators  must  be  driven  out  of  the  country,  and  it  would 
again  become  what  it  had  always  been,  Servian  or  Greek.  Accordingly  they 
acted  on  this  basis. 

Who  were  these  agitators  who  had  made  the  people  forget  the  Greek  and 
Servian  tongues?  First,  they  were  the  priests;  then  the  schoolmasters;  lastly 
the  revolutionary  elements  who,  under  the  ancient  regime,  had  formed  an  "or- 
ganization" ;  heads  of  bands  and  their  members,  peasants  who  had  supplied  them 
with  money  or  food, — in  a  word  the  whole  of  the  male  population,  in  so  far 
as  it  was  educated  and  informed.  It  was  much  easier  for  a  Servian  or  a  Greek 
to  discover  all  these  criminal  patriots  than  it  had  been  for  the  Turkish  authori- 
ties, under  the  absolutist  regime,  to  do  so.  The  means  of  awakening  the  national 
conscience  were  much  better  known  to  Greeks  and  Servians,  for  one  thing, 
since  they  were  accustomed  to  use  them  for  their  own  cause.  Priests,  school- 
masters, bands  existed  among  the  Greeks  and  Servians,  as  well  as  among  the 
Bulgarians.  In  Macedonia  the  difference,  as  we  know,  lay  in  the  fact  that  the 
schoolmaster  or  priest,  the  Servian  voyevoda  or  Greek  andarte,  addressed  him- 
self to  the  minority,  and  had  to  recruit  his  own  following  instead  of  finding 
them  ready  made.  Isolated  in  the  midst  of  a  Bulgarian  population,  he  made 
terms  with  Turkish  power  while  the  national  Bulgarian  "organizations"  fought 
against  it.  Since  the  representative  of  the  national  minority  lived  side  by  side 
with  his  Bulgarian  neighbors,  and  knew  them  far  better  than  did  the  Turkish 
official  or  policeman,  he  could  supply  the  latter  with  the  exact  information.  He 
learned  still  more  during  the  last  few  years  of  general  truce  between  the  Chris- 
tian nationalities  and  growing  alliance  against  the  Turk.  Almost  admitted  to  the 
plot,  many  secrets  were  known  to  him.  It  was  but  natural  he  should  use  this 
knowledge  for  the  advantage  of  the  compatriots  who  had  appeared  in  the  guise 
of  liberators.  On  the  arrival  of  his  army,  he  was  no  longer  solitary,  isolated  and 
despised ;  he  became  useful  and  necessary,  and  was  proud  of  serving  the  national 
cause.  With  his  aid,  denunciation  became  an  all  powerful  weapon;  it  penetrated 
to  the  recesses  of  local  life  and  revived  events  of  the  past  unknown  to  the  Turkish 
authorities.  These  men,  regarded  by  the  population  as  leaders  and  venerated 
as  heroes,  were  arrested  and  punished  like  mere  vagabonds  and  brigands,  while 
the  dregs  were  raised  to  greatness.  ^L 

This  progressive  disintegration  of  social  and  nationaf  life  began  in  Mace- 
donia with  the  entry  of  the  armies  of  occupation,  and  did  not  cease  during  the 
eight  months  which  lie  between  the  beginning  of  the  first  war  and  the  beginning 


52  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 

of  the  second.  It  could  not  fail  to  produce  the  most  profound  changes.  The 
Bulgarian  nation  was  decapitated.  A  beginning  was  made  when  it  was  easiest. 
The  openly  revolutionary  elements  were  gotten  rid  of, — the  comitadjis  and  all 
those  who  had  been  connected  with  the  movement  of  insurrection  against  the 
Turkish  rule  or  the  conflict  with  the  national  minorities.  This  was  the  easier 
because  in  the  chaos  of  Macedonian  law  there  was^no  clearly  drawn  line  of 
demarcation  between  political  and  ordinary  crime. 

To  combat  the  Bulgarian  schools  was  more  difficult.  The  time  was  already 
long  past  when  the  schoolmaster  was  necessarily  a  member  of  the  "interior  or- 
ganization." The  purely  professional  element  had  steadily  displaced  the  apostles 
and  martyrs  of  preceding  generations.  But  the  conquerors  saw  things  as  they 
had  been  decades  ago.  For  them  the  schoolmaster  was  always  the  conspirator, 
the  dangerous  man  who  must  be  gotten  rid  of,  and  the  school,  however  strictly 
"professional,"  was  a  center  from  which  Bulgarian  civilization  emanated.  This 
is  why  the  school  became  the  object  of  systematic  attack  on  the  part  of  Servians 
and  Greeks.  Their  first  act  on  arriving  in  any  place  whatsoever  was  to  close 
the  schools  and  use  them  as  quarters  for  the  soldiery.  Then  the  teachers  of  the 
village  were  collected  together  and  told  that  their  services  were  no  longer  re- 
quired if  they  refused  to  teach  in  Greek  or  Servian.  Those  who  continued  to 
declare  themselves  Bulgarians  were  exposed  to  a  persecution  whose  severity 
varied  with  the  length  of  their  resistance.  Even  the  most  intransigeant  had  to 
avow  themselves  beaten  in  the  end ;  if  not,  they  were  sometimes  allowed  to  depart 
for  Bulgaria,  but  more  usually  sent  to  prison  in  Salonica  or  Uskub. 

The  most  difficult  people  to  subdue  were  the  priests,  and  above  all  the 
bishops.  They  were  first  asked  to  change  the  language  of  divine  service.  En- 
deavors were  made  to  subject  them  to  the  Servian  or  Greek  ecclesiastical  authori- 
ties, and  they  were  compelled  to  mention  their  names  in  the  liturgy.  If  the  priest 
showed  the  smallest  inclination  to  resist,  his  exarchist  church  was  taken  from 
him  and  handed  over  to  the  patriarchists ;  he  was  forbidden  to  hold  any  com- 
munication with  his  flock,  and  on  the  smallest  disobedience  was  accused  of 
political  propagandism  and  treason.  At  first  an  open  attack  on  the  bishops  was 
not  ventured  on.  When  Neophite,  bishop  of  Veles,  refused  to  separate  the 
name  of  King  Peter  from  the  names  of  the  other  kings  of  the  allies  in  his 
prayers,  and  used  colors  in  his  services  which  were  suspected  of  being  the 
Bulgarian  national  colors,  Mr.  Pachitch  advised  the  military  powers  at  Uskub 
(January  4/17)  to  treat  him  as  equal  to  the  Servian  bishop  and  with  correcti- 
tude.  This  ministerial  order,  however,  did  not  prevent  the  local  administrator 
of  Veles,  some  weeks  later  (January  24/February  6  and  February  4/17),  from 
forbidding  Neophite  to  hold  services  and  assemblies  in  his  bishopric,  to  see  priests 
outside  of  the  church  or  to  hold  communication  with  the  villages.  As  the  bishop 
refused  to  take  the  veiled  hints  given  to  him  to  depart  for  Bulgaria,  an  officer  was 
finally  sent  to  his  house  accompanied  by  soldiers,  who  took  his  abode  for  the  army, 
after  having  beaten  his  secretary.  In  the  same  way  Cosmas,  bishop  of  Debra, 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS  53 

was  forced  to  abandon  his  seat  and  leave  his  town.  It  was  even  worse  at  Uskub, 
-where  the  holder  of  the  bishopric,  the  Archimandrite  Methodius,  was  first  driven 
out  of  his  house,  taken  by  force,  shut  up  in  a  room  and  belabored  by  four  sol- 
diers until  he  lost  consciousness  (April  8/21).  Cast  out  into  the  street,  Method- 
ius escaped  into  a  neighboring  house,  in  which  a  Frenchman  dwelt  who  told  the 
story  to  Mr.  Carlier,  French  consul  at  Uskub.  Under  his  protection,  Methodius 
left  for  Salonica  on  April  13/26,  whence  he  was  sent  to  Sofia.  The  Commission 
has  in  its  possession  a  deposition  signed  by  the  foreign  doctors  of  Salonica 
who  saw  and  examined  Methodius  on  April  15/28,  and  found  his  story  "entirely 
probable."1 

The  leaders,  intellectual  and  religious,  of  the  revolutionary  movement, 
having  been  removed,  the  population  of  the  villages  were  directly  approached 
and  urged  to  change  their  nationality  and  proclaim  themselves  Servian  or  Greek. 
The  ecclesiastic  Bulgarian  reports  written  from  every  part  of  Macedonia  are 
unanimous  on  this  head.  "You  know,"  Bishop  Neophite  of  Veles  said  to  his 
persecutor,  "in  your  capacity  as  sub-prefect,  what  the  Servian  priests  and  school- 
masters are  doing  in  the  villages.  They  are  visiting  the  Bulgarian  villages  with 
soldiers  and  forcing  the  people  to  write  themselves  down  as  Servians,  drive  out 
their  Bulgarian  priest  and  ask  to  have  a  Servian  priest  given  them.  Those  who 
refuse  to  proclaim  themselves  Servians  are  beaten  and  tortured."  We  are  in 
possession  of  the  Servian  formula  of  renunciation  of  Bulgarian  nationality. 
This  is  the  formula  which  the  priests  of  these  villages  and  their  flocks  had  to 
address  to  Mr.  Vincentius,  the  Servian  metropolitan  at  Uskub: 

I  and  the  flock  confided  to  my  charge  by  God  were  formerly  Servian, 
but  the  terrors  with  which  the  Bulgarian  comitadjis  representing  the  revolu- 
tionary organization  inspired  us,  and  the  violence  they  used  towards  us, 
compelled  us  and  our  fathers  before  us  to  turn  from  the  patriarchate  to  the 
exarchate,  thus  making  Bulgarians  of  the  pure  Servians  we  were.  Thus 
we  called  ourselves  Bulgars  under  fear  of  death  until  the  arrival  of  our 
Servian  army,  until  the  moment  of  our  liberation  from  the  Turks.  Now 
that  we  are  no  longer  in  fear  of  bombs,  stones,  and  bullets,  we  beg  your 
Holiness,  on  our  own  behalf  and  on  behalf  of  our  flocks,  to  deign  to  restore 
us  to  our  Holy  Church  of  Uskub,  to  restore  us  to  the  faith  which  we  have 
for  a  time  betrayed  through  fear  of  death.  Kissing  your  holy  right  hand, 
we  ask  you  to  pray  to  God  to  pardon  our  sin.  Signed  at  Sopot,  March  28, 
1913. 

This  formula  was  sent,  in  Servia,  by  a  Servian  official,  Daniel  Tsakits,  sec- 
retary to  the  Malinska  community  at  Koumanovo,  to  the  Bulgarian  priest, 
Nicolas  Ivanov,  with  the  following  letter : 

Father  Nicolas,  thou  shalt  sign  this  letter  that  I  send  thee,  and  after 
thee  all  the  villagers  of  Sopot  are  to  sign  likewise  the  Trstenitcham,  the 


1See  the  Appendix. 


54  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

Piestchani,  the  Stanevchani,  and  the  Alakintchani,  who  are  thy  parishioners. 
The  whole  to  be  ready  by  Saturday.  Greeting  from  Daniel  Tsakits,  27,  III, 
1913,  Malino. 

On  the  margin,  Mr.  Tsakits  added  that  there  must  be  twenty  signatures  per 
village  and,  to  be  the  more  sure  of  his  man,  gave  him  on  the  other  side  indica- 
tions ad  oculos:  e.  g.: 

Priest  Nicolas  Yane  Troyine 

Petroche  Kralo  Troyan  Spasi 

Ghele  Sparits  Petrouche  Yane 

Trestenik. 
Danil  Naoumov 


Preote. 


Stanevtsi. 


Alakintse. 


"Take  care  that  those  who  have  signed  do  not  make  off." 

The  precaution  was  not  superfluous,  for  priest  Nicolas  replied  to  this  invi- 
tation by  himself  making  off  to  Chtipe,  to  the  protection  of  the  Bulgarian  authori- 
ties. This  is  what  he  wrote  to  the  sub-prefect  at  Chtipe : 

I  did  not  desire  to  lead  my  parishioners  to  the  Servian  church.  Since 
I  could  not  renounce  my  Bulgarian  nationality,  I  have  emigrated.  I  should 
add  that  my  family  is  exposed  to  the  revenge  of  the  Servian  authorities  and 
that  my  children,  remaining  in  their  birthplace,  will  be  condemned  to  im- 
prisonment at  Belgrade  if  I  do  not  immediately  return. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS 


55 


The  Servians  have  attempted  to  deny  the  authenticity  of  the  secret  Bulgarian 
documents  cited  above,  and  a  small  collection  of  secret  Servian  documents, 
likewise  authentic,  has  actually  been  published  to  refute  them.  We  shall  return 
thereto;  but  upon  the  point  that  interests  us  it  must  be  said  that  these  docu- 
ments only  confirm  what  we  have  already  said.  "Anyone  calling  himself  Bul- 
garian," writes  a  certain  Peter  Kotsov,  a  Macedonian  Bulgar,  in  a  letter  of 
January  11/24,  1913,  "risks  being  killed.  The  Servians  have  introduced  their 
communal  administration  throughout  the  villages,  and  installed  a  Servian  school- 
master for  every  ten  villages.  We  can  not  act  and  we  are  in  a  difficult  position 
because  the  Servians  have  taken  all  the  Bulgarians'  arms.  We  do  what  we  can, 
we  call  to  the  people;  but  we  are  all  waiting  for  the  Bulgarian  army.  Make  it 
come  as  soon  as  possible,  or  we  shall  all  be  subjected  by  the  Servians.  Even  the 
staunchest  Bulgarians  are  ready  to  become  Servians.  The  secret  police  has 

REGIONS   OCCUPIES  PAR  LES  BELLIGERANTS 

FIN   AVRIL     1913 


LEGENDE 

Occupation  serbe 
*      montenegr/ne 
»      bu/gare 

d'apres  fa  contdc  Lone/re, 
*+++  Frontiers  d'apres 
le  traits  serbo-bulg&rs 
</</ 13  Mars  ISI2 


56  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION' 

numerous  agents.  Anyone  who  ventures  to  speak  ill  of  the  Servians  exposes 
himself  to  much  suffering.1  In  the  South  of  Macedonia,  in  the  Greek  occupation 
-zone2  the  same  endeavors  are  being  made  to  make  the  population  Greek." 

Here  are  some  examples,  from  among  thousands.  A  letter  from  the  village 
of  Dembesi  (Castoria)  on  December  11/24,  1912,  runs: 

The  first  care  of  the  Greek  officers  and  soldiers  arriving  here  is  to 
discover  if  the  population  of  the  said  village  and  its  environs  is  Bulgarian 
or  Greek.  If  the  population  is  pure  Bulgarian,  the  officers  order  the  peasants 
to  "become  Greeks  again,  that  being  the  condition  of  a  peaceful  life." 

Evidently  here  again  the  underlying  assumption  made  is  that  the  whole 
population  was  Greek  in  the  past.  "How  long  have  you  been  Bulgarian?"  the 
Greek  officer  asked  at  Khroupichta,  for  example.  "For  years,"  was  the  reply. 
"Return  to  old  times  then;  become  Greeks  again,"  was  the  order  thereupon. 
And  he  showed  remarkable  clemency.  In  the  village  of  Gorno-Nestrame, 
when  the  population  replied  in  Bulgarian  to  questions  put  in  Greek,  the  Greek 
officer  cried  out  angrily:  "Mi  fonasete  vourgarika" — [Don't  speak  Bulgarian]  : 
we  are  in  Greece  and  anyone  who  speaks  Bulgarian  shall  be  off  to  Bulgaria.  In 
some  villages  the  question  was  put  in  this  form:  "Are  you  Christians  or  Bul- 
garians?" In  several  villages  the  inhabitants  were  made  to  sign  petitions  whose 
contents,  unknown  to  them,  were  a  demand  for  reunion  with  Greece.  "What 
a  shame,"  said  the  Greek  gendarmes  at  Gorno-Koufalovo  (March  12/25). 
"We  have  freed  you.  The  voice  of  Alexander  the  Great  calls  to  you  from  the 
tomb;  do  you  not  hear  it?  You  sleep  on  and  go  on  calling  yourselves 
Bulgarians !" 

Where  then  was  the  Bulgarian  army  for  which  people  were  crying  in  Mace- 
donia and  begging  it  to  come  soon,  if  Bulgarian  Macedonia  were  to  be  saved? 
On  the  eve  of  the  war,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Bulgarian  General  Staff  insisted 
on  having  100,000  men  left  free,  according  to  the  terms  of  the  treaty,  to  fight 
back  to  back  with  the  Servians  in  Macedonia,  and  thus  effect  a  real  condominium 
after  the  conquest.  To  defeat  the  Turks  in  the  principal  theater  of  war  was 
first  and  foremost  a  matter  of  imperious  strategic  necessity.  After  the  first 


1The  documents  are  published  in  an  appendix  to  Balcanicus'  book,  The  Servians  and 
Bulgarians  in  the  Balkan  War.  Our  quotation  is  taken  from  the  German  translation 
"Serbien  und  Bulgarien  im  Balkankriege,  1912-13,  ins  Deutsche  iibertragen  von  Dr.  jur.  L. 
Markowitsch,  Wigand,  Leipzig,  1913"  The  French  translation  of  the  original  perverts  the 
meaning  of  the  published  documents.  For  example,  in  our  quotation  the  first  phrase  (Ger- 
man ''Wer  sich  als  Bulgare  bekennt,  dem  droht  die  Lebensgefahr")  is  translated  as  "It  is 
impossible  for  us  to  raise  the  people."  The  last  phrase  "Wer  was  Schlechtcs  hier  von  Serben 
sagt,  dem  wird  es  nicht  wohlergehen,"  is  simply  omitted. 

2See  the  zones  of  occupation  on  the  map  (page  55)  taken  without  alteration  from 
Balcanicus'  book  to  show  the  Servian  point  of  view  the  more  clearly.  We  have  merely 
made  the  stippling  rather  more  distinct  and  completed  the  Albanian  frontier  to  the  South, 
as  projected  at  the  London  Conference  (Balcanicus  shows  an  Albania  of  which  more  than 
half  is  in  Servian  occupation),  adding  the  line  of  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  frontier  as  agreed 
by  the  treaty  of  February  29/  March  13,  1912.  Balcanicus  is  the  pseudonym  of  a  well-known 
Servian  statesman. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO   BALKAN   WARS  57 

victories,  however,  and  the  repulsion  of  the  Turks  at  Kirk  Kilisse,  Lule  Bourgas, 
Tchorlou,  and  Tchataldja,  a  new  reason  for  continuing  the  war  appeared.  After 
the  end  of  November  the  question  might  be  put,  as  by  the  editor  of  the  Bul- 
garian paper  at  Salonica,  whether  this  was  a  war  of  liberation  or  of  conquest. 
The  war  of  liberation  has  in  fact  gained  its  end  at  Lule  Bourgas  (October  31), 
Salonica  (October  27).  Monastir  (October  28).  Why  go  on  pouring  out  the 
blood  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and  expending  great  sums  of  money 
down  to  the  capture  of  Adrianople  (March  13),  of  Yanina  (February  24), 
Durazzo  and  Scutari  (April  9)  ?  The  question  was  debated  at  length  in  all  its 
details  at  Belgrade  during  the  debates  on  the  address  at  the  beginning  of 
November  (new  style),  and  at  Sofia  above  all,  in  the  three  weeks  of  the  election 
campaign  (November  17-December  7).  For  divers  reasons  the  two  par- 
ties agreed  to  end  the  war  in  November,  1912,  and  the  Servian  opposition,  as 
well  as  the  Bulgarian  opposition,  tried  to  prove  that  statesmen  and  parties  had 
committed  a  grave  error  in  letting  it  drag  on  longer  (down  to  May,  1913).  In 
the  first  place,  what  had  the  Servians  to  gain  by  it?  A  discussion  between  the 
opposition  orator,  Mr.  Drachkovits,  and  the  deputies  composing  the  majority  in 
the  Skupshtina  (October  23/Nov.  5,  1913)  will  show: 

Mr.  Milorad  Drachkovits:  For  Bulgaria  the  breaking  of  the  armistice 
and  the  new  war  spelt  Adrianople,  the  most  important  fortress  in  the  Balkans 
after  Constantinople.  For  Bulgaria  that  meant  the  addition  to  the  one  sea 
she  possessed  of  two  others,  and  the  permanent  isolation  of  Constantinople. 
But  what  does  that  mean  for  us?  What  are  we  going  to  gain  in  compensa- 
tion for  the  acquisition  of  Adrianople,  of  Thrace  and  of  three  seas,  the 
desires  of  the  Bulgarians? 

A  Voice  from  the  Right:  We  buy  back  Macedonia. 

Mr.  Drachkovits:  But  gentlemen  of  the  majority,  we  have  already 
bought  it  back.  We  have  acquired  it. 

Anastasius  Petrovits:  And  the  treaty? 

Mr.  Drachkovits:  If  you  want  Servia  to  put  the  treaty  in  force,  first 
make  Bulgaria  do  so.  But  you  are  freeing  Bulgaria  from  an  engagement 
which  it  contracted  while  making  Servia  responsible  for  an  engagement  into 
which  it  never  entered. 

Anastasius  Petrovits:  It  is  that  fact  which,  as  the  world  recognizes,  has 
given  the  government  its  most  real  rights  over  Macedonia. 

Mr.  Drachkovits:  We  have  not  assisted  all  those  who  have  recognized 
the  fact;  but  we  have  assisted  Bulgaria,  which  does  not  recognize  it. 

We  shall  see  that  it  is  in  truth  the  eight  months'  delay  which  allows 
Servia  to  annul  the  treaty  and  keep  the  whole  of  Macedonia.  But  how  do  the 
Bulgarians  come  to  allow  the  war  to  be  thus  prolonged?  How  did  they,  or 
rather  how  did  their  government  fail  to  see  that  the  occupation  of  Macedonia 
for  eight  months  by  the  Servians  and  Greeks  was  going  to  prevent  the  attain- 
ment of  the  real  end  of  the  war, — the  unification  of  Bulgarian  nationality? 

Here  the  case  is  more  complex.     The  replies  made  to  the  attacks  of  Mr. 


58  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 

Ghenadiev  by  his  predecessors,  and  especially  by  Mr.  Theodore  Theodorov, 
were  plausible  enough.  Yet,  it  is  true  that  Grand  Vizier  Kiamil  asked  for 
peace  on  October  29/Nov.  11,  1902.  But  the  General  Staff,  among  them  General 
Savov,  insisted  that  war  should  be  recommenced  without  dragging  on  the 
pourparlers.  You  say  that  Turkey  was  ready  at  that  time  to  hand  over 
Adrianople?  The  case  never  arose.  You  cite  as  proof  the  mysterious  mission 
to  Constantinople  of  the  Bulgarian  banker,  Mr.  Kaltchev  (December  10-13/ 
23-26)  ?  Without  insisting  on  the  fact  that  the  government  had  no  information 
about  a  mission  that  was  entirely  confidential  (Mr.  Guechov's  first  act  when 
hearing  of  it  was  to  offer  his  resignation),  Mr.  Kaltchev  himself  and  his  inter- 
locutor, Mr.  Noradounghian,  Foreign  Minister  in  the  Kiamil  cabinet,  made  it 
known  through  the  press  that  the  questions  at  issue  were  the  autonomy  of 
Macedonia  and  Thrace  and  the  condominium  at  Dede-Agatch,  and  that  there 
was  no  question  of  the  cession  of  Adrianople.1  Mr.  Ghenadiev  continued  to  talk 
of  a  third  opportunity  for  negotiations:  the  interview  between  General  Savov 
and  Nazim  Pasha  and  Noradounghian,  at  Tchataldja  on  December  26/ January  8, 
at  which  the  Turkish  ministry  resigned  themselves  to  the  abandonment  of  the 
beleaguered  fortress  in  return  for  certain  concessions  in  favor  of  Moslem  religious 
establishments  and  subject  to  the  undertaking  that  Greek  pretensions  to  the  islands 
were  not  upheld — but,  Mr.  Theodorov  asserts,  all  that  is  false;  if  it  were  true 
the  acceptance  of  conditions  so  equivocal  would  have  been  tantamount  to  a 
breach  of  alliance  and  would  have  stopped  the  regular  negotiations  going  on  in 
London. 

In  all  these  questions  of  fact,  the  last  word  has  probably  not  yet  been  said. 
What  is  clear  so  far,  is  that  in  so  far  as  Mr.  Theodorov  succeeded  in  exonerating 
himself,  and  the  Danev  Cabinet  found  excuses  for  missing  all  these  happy  oppor- 
tunities for  negotiations,  it  was  only  by  means  of  casting  the  responsibility  on 
others  in  higher  places. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  preceding  that  by  the  end  of  1912  there  were  two 
policies  in  Bulgaria:  the  policy  of  the  cabinet  and  that  of  those  in  direct  contact 
with  the  army.  Ministers  might  be  anxious  to  be  faithful  to  the  terms  of  the 
alliance;  that  consideration  hardly  troubled  General  Savov's  entourage.  The 
press  has  said  a  great  deal  about  the  romanticism  of  the  latter,  of  Czar  Ferdi- 
nand's desire  to  make  a  triumphal  entry  into  Constantinople,  of  the  white  horses 
and  precious  Venetian  saddle  kept  ready  for  the  attack  on  Tchataldja.  This 
followed  immediately  upon  Kiamil's  peace  proposal  of  October  29/November 
11,  the  prospects  of  which  were  notoriously  weakened  by  its  failure.  After 
demanding  Adrianople.  a  new  frontier  was  proposed,  Rodosto-Malatra,  instead 
of  Midia-Enos  already  adopted  by  international  diplomacy.  Such  an  extension 
of  ambitions  could  not  but  hide  from  sight  the  principal  object  of  the  war.  To 
desire  to  take  Adrianople  at  whatever  cost  was  to  risk  the  loss  of  Macedonia. 


asked  that  the  garrison  in  Adrianople  might  be  allowed  to  depart  and  passage 
be  left  free  as  far  as  Tchataldja. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS  59 

To  demand  an  outlet  on  the  sea  of  Marmora  was  to  have  lost  all  feeling  of 
the  international  position.  Was  it  a  pure  chance  that  Macedonia  was  forgotten 
amid  the  secretive  but  remote  ambitions  which  appeared  thus  unexpectedly  on 
the  horizon  ?  A  recollection  of  what  was  said  in  the  second  part  of  this  chapter 
on  the  relations  between  the  Bulgarian  government  and  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment in  Macedonia,  will  show  that  there  was  nothing  accidental  in  this  neglect. 
Distrust  was  ever  active  between  the  Bulgarian  government  and  the  Macedonian 
movement.  The  former  was  perpetually  apprehensive  that  the  comitadjis  would 
involve  them  in  internal  or  international  complications.  Now  that  Macedonia 
was  on  the  point  of  being  freed,  everything  was  done  to  prevent  the  Macedonians 
themselves  from  having  any  direct  share  in  the  work  of  liberation.  The  reason 
may  have  lain  partly  in  that  notion  of  partition  in  Macedonia,  admitted  in  the 
treaties,  but  unknown  to  the  public  at  large,  which  had  yet  to  become  accustomed 
to  it.  In  any  case  the  15,000  Macedonian  volunteers  who  might  have  been  left 
to  fight  in  Macedonia  itself,  near  their  homes,  were  compelled  to  dwell  through- 
out the  war,  far  away  from  their  villages,  at  Tchataldja  and  Boulair.  The 
number  of  inconvenient  witnesses  of  the  work  of  denationalization  in  Macedonia 
was  as  far  as  possible  reduced,  and  the  taking  possession  of  the  conquered 
country  by  the  Servian  and  Greek  armies  as  far  as  possible  facilitated.  If  the 
aim  of  these  tactics  was  to  facilitate  partition,  the  result  went  beyond  it.  What 
was  precipitated  was  the  loss  of  Macedonia  to  the  profit  of  the  allies.  Fear  of 
a  real  liberation  of  the  Macedonian  nation  brought  about  its  conquest  by  the 
competitors.  In  January,  the  Macedonian  legionaries  of  General  Ghenev  began 
accusing  the  Bulgarian  government  of  having  deceived  the  people  in  order  to 
"sell  Macedonia."  In  fact  the  government  deceived  only  itself. 

True,  the  Bulgarian  government  had  no  notion  of  making  any  sacrifice  in 
turning  its  attention  from  Veles,  Monastir,  Okhrida,  Castoria  and  Fiorina,  to 
which  it  should  have  been  directed,  to  Salonica  and  Rodosto.  They  thought 
they  could  chew  all  they  had  bitten  off.  The  members  of  the  Russophil  Guechov- 
Danev  cabinet  believed  it  because  they  were  sure  of  the  sacredness  of  treaty 
obligations  and  believed  that  the  existence  of  the  arbitration  was  a  sort  of  guar- 
antee. The  military  party  and  public  opinion  were  sure  of  the  excellence  of 
natural  rights  which  they  are  ready  to  defend  with  the  sword. 

Were  there  not,  nevertheless,  certain  premonitory  signs  which  should  have 
proved  to  the  blindest  the  lack  of  prudence  in  combining  such  complete  mistrust 
of  others  with  such  entire  self  confidence? 

First  there  was  the  state  of  things  in  Macedonia  above  described.  The 
denationalization  process  had  gone  much  further  there  than  diplomatists  were 
willing  to  admit.  The  partition  treaty  had  long  been  violated  when  Mr.  Pachitch 
was  still  talking  of  introducing  modifications  into  the  treaty  to  save  it  from 
complete  annihilation. 

On  September  15,  1912,  that  is  to  say,  six  and  a  half  months  after  the 
conclusion  of  the  treaty,  and  twenty  days  before  the  beginning  of  the  war  abroad, 


60  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

Servia's  representative  received  a  secret  circular  demanding  the  incorporation  in 
"Old  Servia,''  beyond  the  agreed  frontier,  of  the  towns  of  Prilepe,  Kritchevo  and 
Okhrida.  With  the  victories  of  the  Servian  army,  the  list  of  concessions  de- 
manded rapidly  lengthened.  Mr.  Pachitch  was  still 'only  talking  of  Prilepe,  the 
town  of  the  legendary  hero,  Marko  Kralivits,  when  the  army  was  asking  for 
Monastir.  When  he  asked  for  Monastir,  the  army  insisted  on  a  frontier  co- 
terminous with  Greece.  The  government  ended  by  accepting  all  the  conditions 
laid  down  by  the  country,  conditions  that  grew  more  and  more  exacting.  The 
military  party  was  powerful;  it  was  led  by  the  hereditary  prince;  and  it  in- 
variably succeeded  in  overriding  the  first  minister,  always  undecided,  always 
temporizing  and  anxious  to  arrange  everything  pleasantly.  The  demands  pre- 
sented to  the  Bulgarians  by  Mr.  Pachitch  were  as  vague  and  indecisive  as  his 
home  policy.  He  began  in  the  autumn  of  1912,  by  offering  a  revision  of  the 
treaty  in  the  official  organ.  Then  in  December,  in  a  private  letter  to  his  ambassa- 
dor at  Sofia,  he  informed  Mr.  Guechov,  the  head  of  the  Bulgarian  cabinet,  that 
revision  was  necessary.  In  January  his  ideas  as  to  the  limits  within  which  the 
said  revision  should  take  place,  were  still  undecided.  In  February  he  submitted 
written  proposals  to  the  Bulgarian  government,  and  suggested  that  revision 
might  be  undertaken  "without  rousing  public  opinion  or  allowing  the  Great 
Powers  to  mix  themselves  up  with  the  question  of  partition."  At  this  moment 
Mr.  Pachitch  could  still  fancy  that  he  had  the  solution  of  the  conflict  in  his 
hand.  He  was  to  lose  this  illusion.  His  colleague  was  already  writing  his 
"Balcanicus"  pamphlet  in  which  he  took  his  stand  on  the  clause  pacta  servanda 
sunt,  with  the  reservation  rebus  sic  stantibus,  and  pointing  to  the  changes  in  the 
disposition  of  the  allied  armies  between  the  two  theaters  of  war  (see  above),  as 
infractions  of  the  treaty  which  must  lead  to  revision.  In  his  speech  of  May 
29,  Mr.  Pachitch  ended  by  accepting  this  reasoning.  At  the  same  time  the 
military  authorities  in  Macedonia  had  decided  to  hold  on.  On  February  27 f 
March  12,  they  told  the  population  of  Veles  that  the  town  would  remain  in 
Servia.  On  April  3/16,  Major  Razsoukanov,  Bulgarian  attache  with  the  General 
Staff  of  the  Servian  army  at  Uskub,  told  his  government  that  his  demands  were 
not  even  answered  with  conditional  phrases.  "This  is  provisional,  until  it  has 
been  decided  to  whom  such  and  such  a  village  belongs"  (in  the  Chtip  or  Doiran 
areas).  Major  Razsoukanov  learned  that  at  the  instance  of  the  General  Staff 
the  Belgrade  government  had  decided  on  the  rivers  Zletovska,  Bregalnitsa  and 
Lakavitsa,  as  the  definite  eastern  limit  of  the  occupation  territory.  The  inter- 
esting correspondence  published  by  Balcanicus  in  his  pamphlet  (see  above)  re- 
fers to  the  forced  execution  of  this  resolution  in  the  disputed  territories  during 
the  month  of  March.  We  have  here,  on  the  one  hand,  the  Bulgarian  comitadjis 
begging,  according  to  the  advice  of  the  above  letter,  for  the  arrival  of  the  Bul- 
garian force  and  trying,  in  its  absence,  to  do  its  work,  well  or  ill;  on  the 
Qther,  the  Servian  army,  setting  up  Servian  administration  in  the  villages,  closing 
the  Bulgarian  schools,  driving  out  the  comitadjis  and  "reestablishing  order." 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN   WARS  61 

Between  the  two  parties,  contending  in  a  time  of  peace,  stood  the  population, 
forced  to  side  with  one  or  the  other  and  naturally  inclining  to  the  stronger. 
Mr.  Razsoukanov  (who  gives  us  confirmation  of  the  methods  employed  by  the 
Servian  administration  to  "round  off"  the  frontiers  of  the  occupied  territory) 
notes  also  the  predominant  state  of  mind  of  the  army  of  occupation.  According 
to  him  "the  military  party  in  Servia,  with  the  heir  apparent  as  its  head,"  did 
not  stop  here.  It  "dreams  of  and  works  for  a  'Great  Servia'  with  the  river 
Strouma  at  least  as  its  frontier."  "To  insure  possession  of  the  occupied  terri- 
tories the  Servians  had  to  discover  some  compromise  with  the  Greeks,  and  one 
was  found."  Mr.  Razsoukanov  was  the  first  to  make  us  acquainted  with  facts 
now  confirmed  by  the  Roumanian  "Green  Book."  He  states  that — "I  am  in- 
clined to  believe  that  there  was,  over  and  above  the  treaty  concluded  between  the 
'military  leagues'  of  the  two  countries,  a  similar  agreement  between  the  govern- 
ments and  the  armies.  That  was  why  General  Poutnik  went,  on  March  9/22, 
to  'inspect'  the  garrison  at  Monastir,  where  there  was  barely  a  regiment,  and 
the  heir  apparent  had  also  gone  on  two  occasions,  likewise  for  'inspection.'  I 
rather  think  that  in  the  special  train,  with  which  General  Poutnik  was  provided 
by  the  Greeks,  'something'  was  decided  between  the  two  allies,  to  the  disadvan- 
tage of  the  absent  third:  and  that  it  was  this  special  train,  Salonica  to  Monastir, 
which  the  General  went  to  'inspect.'  It  is  a  fact  that  the  Servian  ambassador 
at  Bucharest  did  on  March  24/April  6,  propose  to  Roumania  a  treaty  of  alliance 
against  Bulgaria,  and  that  on  April  19/May  2,  the  Greek  ambassador  made  the 
same  proposition.  Mr.  Venizelos,  on  his  part,  confessed  to  the  Chamber  that 
Prince  Nicholas — one  of  the  interlocutors  on  board  the  'special  trains,' — as 
military  governor  of  Salonica,  largely  contributed  in  the  preparations  of  the 
Greek-Servian  convention.  This  convention  was  concluded  on  May  16/29." 

Evidently  war  was  preparing.  The  Servian  General  Staff  employed  the 
time  in  fortifying  the  central  position  at  Ovtche-Pole.  The  Greeks,  after  increas- 
ing their  Macedonian  army  by  the  addition  of  the  regiments  released  by  the 
capture  of  Yanina,  also  tried  to  take  up  advanced  positions  in  the  area  of  Bulgarian 
occupation,  at  Pravishta  and  Nigrita.  The  pourparlers  with  Turkey,  which  had 
been  resumed  in  London,  were  dragged  on  to  give  time  to  complete  these  prepa- 
rations. On  May  6,  the  Servian  General  Staff  laid  down  the  preliminary  dis- 
positions for  concentrating  to  the  east  of  Uskub.  From  May  15,  a  military 
convention  and  plan  of  concerted  operations  with  Greece  were  under  discussion. 
The  Bulgarians,  on  the  other  hand,  hastened  to  make  peace  with  the  Turks ;  this 
agreed,  they  diverted  their  armies  from  Adrianople  and  Tchataldja  towards 
Macedonia  and  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  frontier.  On  either  side  preparations  were 
made  when  a  final  diplomatic  duel  took  place.  Throughout,  the  opening  of 
hostilities  was  never  lost  to  sight.  On  May  12/25,  Mr.  Pachitch  finally  despatched 
to  Sofia  propositions  relative  to  the  revision  of  the  treaty.  He  justified  the  new 
Servian  demands  by  two  classes  of  reasons.  First,  the  clauses  of  the  treaty  had 
been  modified  in  application ;  secondly,  external  circumstances  not  foreseen  by  the 


62  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

treaty  had  profoundly  changed  its  tenor.  The  clauses  of  the  treaty  had  been 
violated  by  the  fact  that  the  Bulgarians  had  not  given  the  Servians  military 
assistance,  while  the  Servians  for  their  part  had  aided  the  Bulgarians.  The 
refusal  to  leave  the  Adriatic  on  the  part  of  the  Servians,  and  the  occupations  of 
Adrianople  and  Thrace  by  the  Bulgarians,  constituted  two  new  violations  of  the 
treaty.  Servia  then  was  entitled  to  territorial  compensation;  first,  because  the 
Bulgarians  had  not  rendered  the  promised  aid ;  second,  because  Servia  had 
assisted  the  Bulgarians;  third,  because  Servia  had  lost  the  Adriatic  littoral  while 
Bulgaria  had  acquired  Thrace.  This  time  Mr.  Pachitch  was  in  accord  with  public 
opinion.  This  same  public  opinion  had  its  influence  on  the  Bulgarian  govern- 
ment. Since  the  treaty  of  February  29 /March  13  remained  secret,  the  public 
could  not  follow  the  juridical  casuistry  based  on  a  commentary  on  this  or  that 
ambiguous  phrase  in  the  text.  The  public  renounced  the  treaty  en  bloc  and 
would  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  "contested  zone."  If  the  Servians  trans- 
gressed the  terms  of  the  treaty  in  their  demands  Bulgarian  diplomatists  greatly 
inclined  to  act  in  the  same  way.  If  the  Servians  demanded  an  outlet  on  the 
^gean  as  a  necessary  condition  of  existence  after  the  loss  of  their  outlet  on  the 
Adriatic,  and  insisted  on  a  coterminous  frontier  with  Greece  to  secure  it,  Mr. 
Danev  left  the  allies  and  contravened  the  terms  of  the  treaty  when  he  laid  before 
the  Powers  in  London  a  demand  for  a  frontier  coterminous  with  Albania  in  the 
Debra  region.  At  the  same  time  Mr.  Danev  went  against  his  ministerial  col- 
leagues and  followed  the  military  authorities  in  refusing  to  hand  over  Salonica. 
Austria  appeared  to  have  promised  it  him,  after  promising  the  Vardar  plain  to 
Servia.  Thus  on  the  one  hand  complications  and  broils  were  .being  introduced 
by  the  perversion  to  megalomania  of  the  National  Ideal:  on  the  other  (this  was 
the  standpoint  of  Guechov  and  Theodorov),  there  was  the  endeavor  to  safeguard 
the  alliance.  With  Servia  drawing  near  to  Greece,  Bulgaria  had  to  join  hands 
with  Roumania  if  it  were  not  to  find  itself  isolated  in  the  peninsula.  This  was 
what  Austria  Hungary  wanted,  and  it  favored  the  policy.  Roumania  accepted, 
but  on  condition  of  receiving  the  recompense  assured  it  by  a  secret  convention 
with  Austria  in  the  event  of  war  with  Bulgaria:  annexation  of  the  Tourtoukai- 
Baltchik  line.  On  these  conditions  Roumania  would  remain  neutral;  it  even 
promised  military  assistance  against  Turkey !  But  Turkey  was  defeated  and  the 
Ministry  pretended  not  to  want  to  war  with  the  allies.  Why  then  sacrifice  the 
richest  bit  of  Bulgarian  territory?  Austria's  effort  broke  against  these  hypo- 
critical and  formal — or  too  simple — arguments.  At  bottom  war  was  believed  to 
be  inevitable  and  Russia,  it  was  thought,  would  do  the  rest.  Russia  threatened 
Bulgaria  with  Roumanian  invasion,  if  it  came  to  war.  By  the  end  of  May, 
Russian  diplomacy  made  a  final  effort  to  avoid  conflict.  While  agreeing  to  play 
the  part  of  arbiter  within  the  limits  of  the  alliance,  Russia  gave  counsels  of 
prudence.  Go  beyond  the  Servian  demands  for  compensation,  they  said:  despite 
the  implicit  promise  the  Servians  made  you  of  demanding  nothing  beyond  what 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS  63 

the  treaty  gave  them,  agree  to  cede  some  towns  outside  the  "contested  zone," 
"beyond"  the  frontier  which  they  had  promised  not  to  "violate." 

This  Russian  solution,  which  could  not  satisfy  the  Servians,  had  not  much 
chance  of  being  accepted  by  the  Bulgarians.  The  attitude  taken  by  Russia  filled 
the  opposing  parties  with  some  doubts  as  to  the  impartiality  of  its  arbitration. 
The  Servians  were  sure  that  Russia  had  not  forgotten  the  Bulgaria  of  San  Stefano 
and  the  Bulgarians  could  not  use  Macedonia  as  a  medium  of  exchange  on  the 
international  market.  On  both  sides  the  conviction  was  reached  that  the  issue 
must  be  sought  in  armed  conflict. 

There  was.  however,  one  last  attempt  at  avoiding  open  strife :  the  two  initia- 
tors of  the  treaty  of  alliance,  Pachitch  and  Guechov,  arranged  a  meeting  at 
Tsaribrod  on  the  frontier.  They  wanted  to  try  to  reach  a  friendly  solution  of 
the  difficulties,  without  any  "public"  or  "Powers."  Alas,  what  was  possible  in 
the  month  of  February  was  no  longer  so  in  May.  In  the  first  place  the  "public" 
of  the  political  parties  was  there,  in  Belgrade,  and  they  did  not  want  to  leave 
Pachitch  tete-a-tete  with  the  Bulgarian  Premier.  Before  starting  for  Tsaribrod 
he  had  to  read  to  the  Skupshtina  a  summary  of  his  reasons  for  a  revision  of  the 
treaty;  they  were  the  same  he  had  addressed  to  Sofia  three  days  earlier  (see 
above).  But  thus  to  divulge  the  secrets  of  diplomatic  correspondence  was  to  cut 
off  the  retreat.  In  such  circumstances  the  speech  of  May  15/28  was  the  death- 
blow to  the  pacifist  hopes  of  Mr.  Guechov  on  the  eve  of  departure  for  Tsaribrod. 
The  words  attributed  to  Mr.  Pachitch  in  an  interview  in  an  Agram  paper  are  not 
at  all  improbable.  "I  was  certain,"  he  is  reported  to  have  said,  "that  the  Bulga- 
rians would  reply  by  a  declaration  of  war."  Mr.  Guechov's  situation  was  hardly 
more  brilliant.  He,  too,  had  to  fight  at  Sofia  against  a  war  party;  but  he  was 
not  going  to  make  concessions.  When  he  learned  on  May  17/30  that  the  Czar 
Ferdinand  had  received  the  leaders  of  the  opposition  on  the  previous  evening 
and  received  their  counsels  of  war  with  approval,  Mr.  Guechov  handed  in  his 
resignation.  Mr.  Pachitch  did  not  know  that  on  May  20/June  2,  at  Tsaribrod, 
he  was  speaking  to  an  ex-Minister.  Yet  another  issue  or  rather  a  means  of 
delaying  events  was  discovered:  to  hold  a  conference  of  the  prime  ministers  of 
the  allied  States.  On  May  22/June  4,  Mr.  Guechov's  resignation  was  known 
to  all.  With  him  the  last  hope  of  escaping  war  disappeared. 

At  this  moment  the  Czar  of  Russia  made  a  final  effort.  On  May  26/June  8, 
he  sent  a  telegram  to  the  Kings  of  Servia  and  Bulgaria  in  which,  while  noting 
the  suggested  meeting  at  Salonica  and  its  eventual  continuation  at  St.  Petersburg, 
he  reminded  them  that  they  were  bound  to  submit  their  findings  to  his  arbitra- 
ment. He  stated  solemnly  that  "the  State  which  begins  the  war  will  answer  for 
its  conduct  to  Slavdom."  He  reserved  to  himself  entire  freedom  to  decide  what 
attitude  Russia  would  take  up  in  view  of  the  "possible  consequences  of  this 
criminal  strife."  The  secret  diplomatic  correspondence  explains  this  threat. 
If  Servia  will  not  submit  to  Russian  arbitration  "it  will  risk  its  existence."  If 


64  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN    COMMISSION 

it  is  Bulgaria  that  resists,  "it  will  be  attacked,  in  the  war  with  the  allies,  by 
Roumania  and  Turkey." 

The  threat  was  understood  at  Belgrade  but  merely  created  irritation.  "Russia 
holds  over  us,"  it  was  said  there,  "the  ever  threatening  danger  of  Austria's 
neighborhood,  and  because  she  knows  that  if  she  abandons  us,  our  enemies 
across  the  Danube  will  hasten  to  exercise  the  severest  pressure  upon  us,  she 
thinks  she  can  neglect  us.  *  *  *  All  favors  go  to  the  Bulgarians.  We  can 
not  go  any  further  in  this  direction.  We  have  given  way  on  the  Albanian  ques- 
tion, we  can  not  give  way  in  Macedonia.  We  can  not  condemn  ourselves  to 
national  suicide  because  at  St.  Petersburg  or  at  Tsarskoie-Selo  it  has  been  so 
decided."1 

In  view  of  the  tendencies  of  the  militarist  party,  Mr.  Pachitch  sent  in  his 
resignation  in  his  turn,  on  June  2/15.  But  the  Russian  Ambassador,  Mr.  Hartwig, 
was  there  to  show  the  gravity  of  the  situation  and  persuade  the  King,  the  mem- 
bers of  the  cabinet,  the  deputies,  to  yield  to  Russia's  demands  and  unreservedly 
accept  arbitration.  Mr.  Pachitch  remained,  and  on  June  8/21,  Belgrade  declared 
its  willingness  to  accept  arbitration ;  "without  inwardly  believing  in  it,"  as  the 
Agram  interviewer  adds.  And  Mr.  de  Penennrun  said  "Mr.  Pachitch  had  no  more 
desire  than  Mr.  Danev  to  betake  himself  to  St.  Petersburg.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
although  he  endeavored  to  put  himself  in  agreement  with  the  critics  and  oppo- 
nents in  the  Skupshtina,  at  the  close  of  the  eventful  session  of  June  17/30, 
Mr.  Pachitch  declared  that  he  in  no  way  abandoned  the  point  of  view  set  out  in 
his  summary  of  May  15/28,  and  had  accepted  arbitration  only  because  he  had 
become  convinced  first,  that  it  would  proceed  on  an  extended  basis  rather  than 
within  the  limits  laid  down  in  Art.  4  of  the  secret  annex  to  the  treaty;  and 
second,  on  condition  that  the  "spheres  of  direction  in  Russia"  agreed  to  consider 
the  Greek-Bulgarian  conflict  at  the  same  time  as  the  Serbo-Bulgarian. 

On  this  point  the  new  allies  had  agreed ;  and  Mr.  Venizelos  confirmed  it  in  a 
paragraph  communicated  on  the  same  day  to  the  Temps.  After  Mr.  Pachitch's 
explanations  and  the  subsequent  discussion  in  which  the  demand  voiced  was  for 
the  annexation  of  Macedonia  rather  than  for  arbitration  (Mr.  Ribaratz)  ;  and 
after  it  had  been  stated  (Mr.  Paul  Marinkovits)  that  "the  Servian  people  would 
rather  trust  to  its  victorious  army  than  to  the  well  known  tactlessness  of  Mr. 
Pachitch,"  the  Skupshtina  reverted  to  the  order  of  the  day  of  a  month  previous. 
It  renewed  its  decision  "not  to  allow  the  vital  interests  of  Servia  to  be  abused." 
Mr.  Drachkovits  explained  this  condition  which  he  laid  down  as  follows: 
"The  valley  of  the  Vardar  is  a  vital  interest  for  Servia,  and  any  arbitrament 
which  leaves  this  vital  need  out  of  account  could  not  be  accepted."  Some  min- 
utes before.  Pachitch  received  in  the  chamber  the  telegram  informing  him  of  the 


1These  characteristic  terms  were  recorded,  some  weeks  later,  at  Belgrade  by  Mr.  de 
Penennrun.  See  his  book,  Ouarante  jours  de  guerre  dans  les  Balkans.  Chapelot,  Paris, 
1914. 


ORIGIN   OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN   WARS  65 

outbreak  of  hostilities.  Turning  pale,  he  withdrew.  Arbitration  then  would  not 
take  place,  and  it  would  not  be  Servia's  fault. 

At  Sofia,  in  fact,  for  military  reasons  to  be  explained,  the  final  agony  had 
been  reached  more  quickly  than  at  Belgrade.  Here  events  were  precipitated  by 
conflict  between  the  cabinet  and  the  military  party.  As  to  the  aim  to  be  attained 
there  was  unanimity.  The  Servians  must  be  forced  to  carry  out  the  treaty  and 
evacuate  Macedonia  to  the  south  of  the  frontier  agreed  upon.  But  no  agree- 
ment could  be  reached  as  to  the  means.  Mr.  Guechov's  favorite  tactics  were  to 
temporize.  We  have  seen  how  under  the  circumstances  of  debate  precious  time 
had  been  lost  both  by  Guechov  and  Pachitch.  If  concessions  to  Servia  were  to 
be  made,  they  ought  to  have  been  made  in  January  or  at  latest  in  February,  when 
Mr.  Pachitch  proposed  to  act  apart  from  the  "public  and  the  Powers,"  and  while 
negotiations  would  still  be  undertaken  under  the  most  favorable  conditions.  If 
no  concession  was  to  be  made,  means  should  have  been  devised  for  resolving 
by  force  what  it  had  been  determined  to  regard  as  a  question  of  force — "eine 
Macht-frage."  It  was  then  time  to  think  of  alliances  and  neutralities  and  pay 
for  them  with  temporary  concessions.  It  was  necessary  to  know  how  not  to 
yield  to"  certain  ambitions.  Neither  one  nor  the  other  was  done.  When  Mr. 
Danev  became  Prime  Minister,  he  took  up  with  his  portfolio  an  ambiguous 
position  which  Mr.  Guechov  had  rightly  refused:  that  of  working  for  war  while 
remaining  a  partisan  of  peace.  This  internal  contradiction  was  bound  to  act 
fatally  and  to  paralyze  those  who  believed  in  action  and  those  who  opposed  it 
alike.  Mr.  Danev,  and,  to  an  even  greater  extent,  his  colleague,  Mr.  Theodorov, 
continued  to  the  end  convinced  that  they  could  keep  all  they  had  acquired. 
Mr.  Danev  even  wanted  to  get  more — without  risking  war.  The  militarists 
knew  better. 

A  telegram  of  June  8/21  from  General  Savov  to  the  commander  of  the 
fourth  army,  describes  the  state  of  things  as  follows : 

I.  There  is  an  alliance  between  the  Servians  and  the  Greeks  whose 
object  is  to  hold  and  divide  the  whole  territory  of  Macedonia  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Vardar  with  the  addition  of  Uskub,  Koumanova,  Kratovo  and 
Kriva  Palonka  for  the  Servians;  Salonica  and  the  regions  of  Pravishta 
and  Nigrita  for  the  Greeks.  II.  The  Servians  do  not  recognize  the  treaty 
and  do  not  admit  arbitration  within  the  limits  of  the  treaty.  III.  We  insist 
that  the  arbitrators  start  from  the  basis  laid  down  in  the  treaty,  i.  e.,  con- 
cern themselves  solely  with  the  contested  zone.  Since  the  non-contested 
territory  belongs  to  us  according  to  the  treaty,  we  desire  that  it  should 
be  evacuated  by  the  Servians  or,  at  least,  occupied  by  mixed  armies  for 
such  time  as  the  pourparlers  are  going  on.  We  make  the  same  proposition 
to  the  Greeks.  IV.  These  questions  must  be  settled  within  ten  days  and  in 
our  sense,  or  war  is  inevitable.  Thus  within  ten  days  we  shall  have  either 
war  or  demobilization,  according  as  the  government's  demands  are  accepted 
or  refused.  V.  If  we  demobilize  now  the  territories  mentioned  will  remain 
in  the  hands  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Servians,  since  it  is  difficult  to  suppose 


66  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

that  they  will  be  peacefully  handed  over  to  us.  VI.  The  discontent  which 
has  recently  manifested  itself  in  certain  parts  of  the  army  gives  ground  for 
supposing  that  there  is  a  serious  agitation  against  war.  The  attention  of 
intelligent  soldiers  must  be  directed  to  the  fact  that  should  the  army  become 
disorganized  and  incapable  of  action,  the  result  will  be  as  described  in 
paragraph  v.  Reply  with  the  least  possible  delay  whether  the  state  of  the 
army  is  such  that  it  can  be  counted  on  for  successful  operations. 

The  point  of  particular  interest  in  this  document  is  the  indication  afforded 
of  the  state  of  mind  of  the  Bulgarian  army,  which  explains  why  the  commander 
was  particularly  anxious  to  have  the  question  settled.  Harvest  time  approached 
and  the  Bulgarian  soldier  who,  after  what  he  had  suffered  and  endured  during 
the  long  months  of  winter  and  spring  at  Tchataldja  and  Boulair,  had  then,  instead 
of  returning  home,  been  compelled  to  join  the  army  on  the  western  frontier, 
had  had  enough.  One  thing  or  the  other:  it  was  war  or  demobilization:  but  in 
any  case  there  must  be  an  immediate  decision,  for  uncertainty  had  become  in- 
tolerable. This  state  of  mind  was  general  and  several  officers  told  Mr.  Bour- 
chier  what  he  repeated  in  the  Times,  "If  the  question  is  not  decided  in  a  week, 
General  Savov  will  no  longer  have  an  army." 

It  was  under  these  circumstances  that  Mr.  Danev  summoned  the  Council  of 
Ministers  on  the  morning  of  June  9/22.  He  told  his  colleagues  that  after  a 
sleepless  night  he  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  since,  even  after  arbitration, 
it  was  more  than  likely  that  Servia  would  make  war  on  them,  it  was  better  to 
carry  it  on  now.  Were  the  army  once  demobilized  it  would  be  difficult  to  bring 
it  together  again  in  the  autumn.  In  such  conditions  whatever  was  done  must 
be  done  at  once.  Clearly  Mr.  Danev  was  expressing  the  ideas  of  Savov.  Mr. 
Theodorov's  reply  was  to  the  point.  War  between  Christians  would  be  shame- 
ful after  the  war  of  liberation.  They  ought  to  go  to  St.  Petersburg:  they  would 
get  all  they  wanted  there.  If,  afterwards,  the  Servians  refused  to  conform  to  the 
decision  of  the  arbiter,  all  Europe  would  be  on  Bulgaria's  side.  All  the  other 
ministers  plead  for  peace  with  one  exception, — Mr.  Khritov,  who  represented 
the  war  party  in  the  Council  and  who  was  not  allowed  to  speak  by  Mr.  Danev, 
who  knew  him.  Mr.  Danev  then  betook  himself  to  the  Czar's  summer  palace 
at  Vrana,  near  Sofia,  to  make  his  report.  General  Savov  was  also  present.  At 
three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  Mr.  Theodorov  was  summoned  to  explain  the 
reasons  of  the  "populist"  party  against  war.  Mr.  Theodorov  emphasized  the 
reasons  for  going  to  St.  Petersburg.  Mr.  Danev  and  General  Savov  gave  their 
consent  thereto.  They  returned  to  Sofia;  the  Council  was  resumed;  the  Russian 
Ambassador  was  summoned  and  the  Council's  decision  communicated  to  him. 
A  demand  was  added,  the  significance  of  which  is  comprehensible  enough  after 
what  had  been  said,  but  which  appeared  to  St.  Petersburg  in  the  guise  of  an 
ultimatum.  The  demand  was  that  the  arbiter  should  publish  his  opinion  within 
eight  days.  It  was  added  that  Mr.  Danev  would  start  in  three  days.  This  was 
nearly  the  "ten  days"  of  Mr.  Savov's  telegram.  Mr.  Necloudov  then  communi- 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN  WARS  67 

cated  the  agreeable  news  that  Servia  accepted  arbitration  unreservedly.  The 
Russian  government  gave  the  Servian  and  Bulgarian  governments  four  days  in 
which  to  prepare  their  memoranda  for  the  arbiter.  On  June  11/24,  Mr.  Theo- 
dorov  received  a  fresh  letter  from  the  Bulgarian  Embassy  at  St.  Petersburg 
which  strengthened  his  view  and  which  he  read  to  the  Council  of  Ministers  on 
the  same  day.  It  was  stated  there:  "War  will  be  our  loss."  "The  Emperor 
and  the  Russian  government  have  decided  to  arbitrate  in  conformity  with  and 
within  the  limits  of  the  treaty.  It  was  desirable  to  come  at  once  since  'the 
absent  are  always  in  the  wrong.'  Otherwise  Russia  will  not  protect  you  in  any 
way,  France  will  give  you  no  money,  England  and  Germany  will  abandon 
you  to  your  own  resources.  Since  in  this  case  Germany  stands  with  the  Triple 
Alliance  no  one  can  checkmate  Russia's  policy ;  Austria  Hungary  will  not  go 
beyond  Platonic  promises  and  Roumania  finally  will  certainly  occupy  your  ter- 
ritories while  Russia  can  not  defend  you."  (This  letter  referred  to  a  report  ad- 
dressed to  Mr.  Danev  a  week  previous.) 

All  this  was  opportunely  said.  These  prognostics  were  later  confirmed  by 
facts.  But  those  at  Sofia  who  desired  war  drew  one  conclusion  only, — Russia 
did  not  desire  a  strong  Bulgaria ;  Bulgaria  fara  da  se.  The  peace  party  was  ter- 
rorized by  the  Macedonian  patriots,  who  threatened  to  kill  Danev  at  the  station 
when  he  started  for  St.  Petersburg,  and  to  march  the  army  on  Sofia.  Public 
opinion  with  few  exceptions  was  for  war.  Under  these  circumstances  the  heads 
of  the  war  party  were  ready  for  any  risk.  The  timid  and  half  initiated  were 
told  that  half  measures  only  were  in  contemplation,  which  would  lead  to  skir- 
mishings such  as  had  frequently  occurred  with  Servians  and  Greeks  on  the  dis- 
puted frontiers.  If  anyone  thought  thus,  he  reckoned  without  his  host. 

On  June  15/28,  General  Savov  sent  the  following  telegram  to  the  commander 
of  the  fourth  army: 

In  order  that  our  silence  under  Servian  attacks  may  not  produce  a  bad 
effect  on  the  state  of  mind  of  the  army,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  avoid  en- 
couraging the  enemy,  I  order  you  to  attack  the  enemy  all  along  the  line  as 
energetically  as  possible,  without  deploying  all  your  forces  or  producing  a 
prolonged  engagement.  Try  to  establish  a  firm  footing  on  Krivolak  on  the 
right  bank  of  the  Bregalnitsa.  It  is  preferable  that  you  undertake  a  fusillade 
in  the  evening  and  make  an  impetuous  attack  on  the  whole  line  during  the 
night  and  at  daybreak.  The  operation  to  be  undertaken  tomorrow,  16th,  in 
the  evening. 

The  order  to  the  second  army  is  mentioned  by  General  Savov  in  another 
telegram  sent  on  the  following  day,  the  16th,  and  even  more  interesting  as  it 
displays  the  motives  which  led  the  war  party  to  risk  action  or  supplied  them 
with  justifications.  "In  direction  24,  I  ordered  the  fourth  army  to  pursue  offensive 
operations  and  the  second  army  as  soon  as  it  had  completed  its  operations  on 
Tchayasa,  to  begin  immediately  concentrating  on  the  line  marked  out  in  order 
to  attack  Salonica.  Messieurs  the  Generals  are  to  bear  in  mind  that  our  opera- 


68  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 

tions  against  the  Servians  and  Greeks  are  undertaken  without  a  formal  declara- 
tion of  war,  mainly  for  the  following  reasons:  (I)  to  bring  the  state  of  mind  of 
the  army  up  to  a  certain  point  and  put  them  in  a  position  (literal  translation)  to 
regard  our  allies  up  to  today  as  enemies;  (II)  to  accelerate  the  decisions  of 
Russian  policy  by  the  fear  of  war  between  the  allies;  (III)  to  inflict  heavy 
blows  upon  our  adversaries  in  order  to  compel  them  to  treat  the  more  readily 
and  make  concessions;  (IV)  since  our  enemies  are  in  occupation  of  territories 
which  belong  to  us  let  us  try  by  our  arms  to  seize  new  territory  until  the 
European  powers  intervene  to  stop  our  military  action.  Since  early  intervention 
can  be  foreseen,  it  is  necessary  to  act  quickly  and  energetically.  The  fourth 
army  must  do  all  in  its  power  to  take  Veles  at  any  cost,  because  of  the  great 
political  significance  of  such  a  conquest.  If  the  operations  of  the  fourth  army 
permit  the  second  will  receive  the  order  to  attack  Salonica." 

Re-reading  this,  the  confused  and  childish  reasoning  of  a  general  wishing 
to  play  the  politician,  it  is  now  difficult  to  believe  that  the  questions  of  war  and 
peace  were  thus  decided.  General  Savov  said  later  that  he  merely  followed  an 
order — then  he  was  silent.  A  story  was  told  in  his  name  that  the  order  was 
given  by  King  Ferdinand,  and  that  he  was  threatened  with  a  court-martial  if 
he  disobeyed  it.  During  the  election  campaign  at  the  end  of  1913  public  atten- 
tion was  almost  exclusively  occupied  with  the  question  of  responsibility  for 
June  16/29  and  people  were  at  great  pains  to  discover  the  culprit.  The  inves- 
tigation is  not  yet  complete,  and  we  need  not  linger  over  the  more  or  less 
probable  rumors  current.  To  seek  for  a  single  culprit,  however,  is  a  mistaken 
method,  inadequate  to  throw  light  on  the  deeper  causes  of  the  Bulgarian  national 
catastrophe.  Not  one  day  in  June  alone,  but  the  whole  course  of  the  two  wars 
must  be  surveyed  in  the  search  for  the  culprit.  As  has  been  said  a  war  of  libera- 
tion became  a  war  of  conquest  for  the  satisfaction  of  personal  ambition :  but 
its  causes,  too,  lay  in  strategic  necessities ;  in  legitimate  tendencies  implicit  in 
the  traditional  national  policy ;  in  the  auto-hypnosis  of  a  people  which  had  never 
experienced  a  reverse  and  was  intoxicated  by  successes,  justly  recognized  by  all 
the  world  for  their  military  glory ;  in  a  misjudgment  of  their  opponents  based  on 
well  known  facts  in  the  past  and  ignorance  of  the  present;  in  a  word  in  that 
profound  belief  in  their  cause  and  their  star  which  is  a  part  of  the  national 
character. 

The  events  which  followed  on  the  fatal  16  and  17/29  and  30  June,  may  be 
recalled  in  a  few  words.  On  the  evening  of  the  17th  the  pacificist  ministers 
learned  with  astonishment  that  while  Mr.  Danev  was  preparing  to  start  for  St. 
Petersburg  and  a  Russian  gunboat  was  waiting  at  Varna  to  convey  him  to 
Odessa,  war  had  broken  out  on  the  frontier.  On  the  morning  of  the  18th,  the 
Council  of  Ministers  met  and  after  a  very  lively  discussion  in  the  course  of 
which  the  cabinet  threatened  to  resign,  General  Savov  was  forced  to  give  an 
order  stopping  the  offensive.  The  General  himself  was  retired  for  having  given 
the  order.  At  the  same  time  the  Russian  government  tried  to  stop  the  move- 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  TWO  BALKAN   WARS  69 

ments  of  the  Greek  and  Servian  armies  by  the  exercise  of  diplomatic  pressure 
at  Athens  and  Belgrade.  There  being  no  sanction  behind  the  action,  it  was 
ineffectual.  Two  days  before  the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  Roumania,  encouraged 
by  Russia,  declared  to  Bulgaria  that  she  reserved  for  herself  entire  liberty 
of  action  in  the  event  of  war.  Full  advantage  was  taken  of  this,  and  it 
soon  proved  much  more  difficult  to  stop  Roumania  once  in  action, 
than  to  induce  her  to  act.  Next,  Turkey  showed  itself  more  and  more 
aggressive  and  intransigeant.  A  veritable  avalanche  of  misfortunes  indeed 
descended  upon  Bulgaria.  A  few  more  dates  must  be  added.  On  July  1  the 
Greeks  fell  upon  the  Bulgarian  garrison  at  Salonica,  massacred  several  soldiers 
and  took  the  rest  prisoner.  The  Bulgarians  could  not  hold  the  positions  behind 
the  rivers  Zletovska,  Bregalnitsa,  Kriva  Lakavitsa ;  they  were  stopped  and  driven 
back  after  several  days'  assault.  On  July  7  and  8,  the  Servian  army  took  the 
offensive.  On  July  9,  the  Servians  took  Radovitch,  the  Greeks  Strumnitsa.  On 
July  11,  the  Roumanian  army  completed  its  mobilization  and  crossed  the  Bul- 
garian frontier  without  encountering  any  opposition.  On  July  12,  the  Turkish 
army  of  Tchataldja  began  re-conquering  Thrace.  On  July  21,  it  was  at  Lule 
Bourgas  and  Kirk  Kilisse;  on  the  22d,  it  recaptured  Adrianople,  which  had  been 
hastily  evacuated  by  the  Bulgarians.  On  July  14,  the  Servians  took  Kriva 
Pahanka.  On  July  11,  Bulgaria  made  its  first  appeal  for  help  to  Europe.  On  the 
23d  of  July,  Ferdinand  appealed  to  the  Czar  to  mediate.  Without  waiting  for 
the  results  of  this  last  proposal  Mr.  Danev  resigned  in  despair.  On  the  15th 
during  the  five  days  of  the  crisis  the  enemies'  armies  continued  their  march  and 
the  Roumanians  advanced  on  Sofia.  A  telegram  from  King  Ferdinand  to 
Francis  Joseph  demanded  mediation  for  Roumania:  on  his  advice,  Ferdinand 
sent  a  telegram  directly  to  King  Carol.  He  demanded  the  cession  of  the  triangle 
Danube-Tourtoukai-Baltchik  as  the  condition  of  peace.  His  proposition  was 
accepted  on  July  21,  but  the  Bulgarians  had  still  to  fight  the  Greeks  who  had 
reached  the  frontiers  of  the  Kingdom  at  Djouma-ya  (25-30),  while  the 
Servians  were  besieging  Vidine.  Negotiations  were  at  last  opened  at  Bucharest 
on  July  30,  and  a  five  days'  armistice  signed  at  mid-day  on  July  31.  On 
August  4  it  was  extended  for  four  days.  The  Peace  of  Bucharest  was  signed 
on  August  10.  and  peace  with  Turkey  concluded  September  29,  1913.  The 
reader  may  compare  the  boundaries  established  by  these  treaties  (see  the  map) 
with  the  areas  of  occupation  three  months  before  the  war.  The  extent  of  Bul- 
garia's losses  is  clear.  Those  who  won  claimed  that  "balance  in  the  Balkans" 
had  been  secured,  an  end  made  of  pretensions  to  hegemony,  and  peace  thus 
secured  for  the  future.  Unhappily  a  nearer  examination  leads  rather  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  treaty  of  Bucharest  has  created  a  condition  of  things  that  is 
far  from  being  durable.  If  the  Bulgarian  "conquest"  is  almost  annulled  by  it, 
the  Greek  and  Servian  "conquests"  are  not  well  established.  A  later  chapter 
(The  War  and  the  Nationalities)  will  afford  abundant  proof  of  this,  and  to  it  we 
refer  the  reader  for  conclusions. 


TERRITORIAL  MODIFICATIONS 

IN     THE      BALKANS 
1.  CONFERENCE  OF   LONDON  2.   TREATY  OF    BUKAREST 


Ancient 
Boundaries 
Boundaries 
according  to  the 
treaty  ofBukarest 


CHAPTER     II 


The  War  and  the  Noncombatant  Population 
1.     THE  PLIGHT  OF  THE  MACEDONIAN  MOSLEMS  DURING  THE  FIRST  WAS. 

The  first  of  the  Balkan  campaigns  was  accepted  by  European  opinion  as  a 
War  of  Liberation.  It  meant  the  downfall  on  one  continent  of  the  Turkish 
Empire;  it  was  easy,  as  victory  succeeded  victory,  to  believe  that  it  meant  also 
the  end  of  all  the  oppressions  of  race  by  race  which  for  five  centuries  had  made 
the  history  of  the  Balkans  a  record  of  rebellion,  repression,  and  massacre.  On  a 
close  view  of  what  happened  in  Macedonia,  as  the  Balkan  armies  marched 
southward,  this  War  of  Liberation  assumes  a  more  sordid  and  familiar  aspect. 
It  unleashed  the  accumulated  hatreds,  the  inherited  revenges  of  centuries.  It 
made  the  oppressed  Christians  for  several  months  the  masters  and  judges  of 
their  Moslem  overlords.  It  gave  the  opportunity  of  vengeance  to  every  peasant 
who  cherished  a  grudge  against  a  harsh  landlord  or  a  brutal  neighbor.  Every 
Bulgarian  village  in  northern  Macedonia  had  its  memory  of  sufferings  and 
wrongs.  For  a  generation  the  insurgent  organization  had  been  busy,  and  the 
normal  condition  of  these  villages  had  been  one  of  intermittent  revolt.  The 
inevitable  Turkish  reprisals  had  fallen  now  on  one  village  and  now  on  another. 
Searches  for  arms,  beatings,  tortures,  wholesale  arrests,  and  occasional  massacres, 
were  the  price  which  these  peasants  paid  for  their  incessant  struggle  toward 
self-government.  In  all  these  incidents  of  repression,  the  local  Moslems  had 
played  their  part,  marching  behind  the  Turkish  troops  as  bashi-bazouks  and 
joining  in  the  work  of  pillage  and  slaughter.  Their  record  was  not  forgotten 
when  the  Bulgarian  victories  brought  the  chance  of  revenge.  To  the  hatred 
of  races  there  was  added  the  resentment  of  the  peasantry  against  the  landlords 
(beys),  who  for  generations  had  levied  a  heavy  tribute  on  their  labor  and  their 
harvests.  The  defeat  of  the  Turkish  armies  meant  something  more  than  a 
political  change.  It  reversed  the  relations  of  conqueror  and  serf;  it  promised 
a  social  revolution. 

Only  the  utmost  vigilance  exercised  by  a  disciplined  army  and  a  resolute 
police  could  have  checked  the  natural  impulse  toward  vengeance  among  the 
liberated  Macedonians.  In  point  of  fact,  the  measures  adopted  by  the  Bulgarian 
government  to  protect  the  local  Moslem  population  in  northern  and  central 
Macedonia  were  inadequate  and  belated.  The  regular  army  was  not  numerous, 
and  it  marched  rapidly  southwards  toward  Salonica,  leaving  no  sufficient  garri- 
sons behind  it.  No  attempt  had  been  made  to  embody  the  insurgent  bands  in 


72  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 

regular  corps,  and  they  were  left  free  over  a  broad  and  populous  area  to  deal 
with  the  local  Turks  as  their  own  instincts  dictated.  Civil  officials  arrived  to 
organize  a  regular  administration  in  some  cases  a  full  six  weeks  after  the 
Turkish  authority  had  disappeared.  It  is  not  surprising  in  these  conditions,  that 
the  Moslem  population  endured  during  the  early  weeks  of  the  war  a  period  of 
lawless  vengeance  and  unmeasured  suffering.  In  many  districts  the  Moslem 
villages  were  systematically  burned  by  their  Christian  neighbors.  Nor  was  it 
only  the  regions  occupied  by  the  Bulgarians  which  suffered.  In  the  province  of 
Monastir.  occupied  by  the  Serbs  and  Greeks,  the  agents  of  the  (British)  Macedo- 
nian Relief  Fund  calculated  that  eighty  per  cent  of  Moslem  villages  were  burned. 
Salonica,  Monastir,  and  Uskub  were  thronged  with  thousands  of  homeless  and 
starving  Moslem  refugees,  many  of  whom  emigrated  to  Asia.  The  Moslem 
quarter  of  the  town  of  Jenidje  Vardar  was  almost  totally  burned  down,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  this  town  was  occupied  by  the  main  Greek  army.  Even 
in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  Salonica,  Moslem  villages  were  burned  by 
the  Greek  troops.  (See  Appendix  A,  No.  12.)  The  Greek  population  of  the 
Drama  district  indulged  in  robbery,  murder  and  violation  at  the  expense  of  the 
Moslem  inhabitants,  until  order  was  restored  by  an  energetic  Bulgarian  prefect. 
(See  Appendix  B,  No.  16.) 

A  curious  document  (Appendix  A,  No.  13a)  drawn  up  by  the  officials  of  the 
Moslem  community  of  Pravishta  and  sealed  with  its  seal,  gives  a  vivid  impression 
of  a  kind  of  persecution  which  we  believe  to  have  been  normal  in  the  early 
months  of  the  first  war.  The  district  of  Pravishta  lies  along  the  coast  to  the  west 
of  Kavala  and  is  inhabited  by  about  20,000  Moslems  and  about  7,000  Greeks. 
It  was  occupied  at  first  by  Bulgarian  bands  under  a  voyevoda  (chief)  named 
Baptchev.  and  afterwards  in  part  by  Bulgarian  and  in  part  by  Greek  troops. 
Such  civil  administration  as  there  was  in  the  early  stages  of  the  conquest  was 
conducted  by  the  Greek  Bishop,  whom  Baptchev  obeyed,  though  with  some 
measure  of  independence.  This  document  gives  particulars,  village  by  village, 
of  the  Moslems  who  were  killed  and  robbed.  The  lists  are  detailed,  and  give 
the  names  not  only  of  the  victims  but  of  the  assassins.  Some  of  the  partic- 
ulars of  the  robberies  are  also  given  in  great  detail,  and  in  one  village  even  the 
color  of  the  stolen  cows  is  stated.  Our  experience  shows  that  lists  of  this  kind 
in  the  Balkans  are  usually  accurate.  Exaggeration  begins  only  when  peasants 
attempt  to  give  estimates  in  round  numbers.  The  number  of  Moslems  killed 
in  each  village  varied  from  one  to  twenty-five,  and  the  damage  done  by  robbery 
and  looting  from  hundreds  to  thousands  of  pounds. 

In  the  villages  all  these  excesses  seem  to  have  been  the  work  of  local  Greek 
bands.  The  most  active  of  these  bands  was  led  by  a  priest  and  a  war- 
like grocer  who  was  a  member  of  the  Bishop's  council.  The  Turks  indeed 
accuse  the  Bishop  of  directing  all  these  atrocities.  The  total  number  of  Moslems 
killed  is  195.  Baptchev,  in  contrast  to  some  other  Bulgarian  leaders  of  bands, 


THE    WAR   AND    THE    NONCOMBATANT    POPULATION  73 

appears  to  have  behaved  relatively  well.  His  exactions  or  robberies  amounted  to 
about  £16,000,  but  he  killed  only  in  ten  cases  after  the  Bishop  and  his  Council 
had  passed  sentence,  and  it  is  said  of  him  and  his  men  that  they  did  no  violence  to 
women,  and  even  rescued  two  from  the  Greeks. .  It  is  also  said  that  Moslem 
women  fled  to  escape  violation  from  villages  held  by  Greek  troops  to  villages 
held  by  Bulgarian  soldiers.  While  we  think  it  probable  that  this  document  is 
accurate  and  truthful,  it  must  be  remembered  that  it  is  an  ex  parte  statement. 
The  Turks  imply  that  the  motive  for  the  slaughter  was  simply  a  desire  to  intimi- 
date their  community  by  striking  at  its  heads.  But  it  is  likely  that  the  local 
Greeks  had  long  standing  grievances  against  many  of  these  Turks.  Vengeance 
and  cupidity  had  probably  as  much  to  do  with  these  excesses  as  policy.  No 
villages  appear  to  have  been  burned  in  this  district,  but  enough  was  done  to 
make  the  local  Moslems  feel  that  their  lot  was  unendurable. 

The  burning  of  villages  and  the  exodus  of  the  defeated  population  is  a 
normal  and  traditional' incident  of  all  Balkan  wars  and  insurrections.  It  is  the 
habit  of  all  these  peoples.  What  they  have  suffered  themselves,  they  inflict  in  turn 
upon  others.  It  could  have  been  avoided  only  by  imperative  orders  from  Athens, 
Belgrade,  and  Sofia,  and  only  then  if  the  church  and  the  insurgent  organization 
had  seconded  the  resolve  of  the  governments.  A  general  appeal  for  humanity 
was  in  fact  published  by  the  Macedonian  insurgent  "Internal  Organization," 
but  it  appears  to  have  produced  little  effect. 

Devastation,  unfortunately,  was  not  the  worst  of  the  incidents  which  stained 
the  War  of  Liberation.  More  particularly  in  northeastern  Macedonia  the  vic- 
torious population  undertook  a  systematic  proscription  of  the  Moslems.  The 
Commission  has  before  it  full  evidence  of  one  of  these  campaigns  of  murder 
at  Strumnitsa.  It  was  probably  the  worst  incident  of  its  kind,  but  it  is  typical 
of  much  that  happened  elsewhere  on  a  smaller  scale.  Our  information  comes 
( 1 )  from  the  surviving  Moslem  notables  of  the  town,  who  gave  us  their  evidence 
personally  (see  Appendix  A,  Nos.  1  and  2)  ;  (2)  from  an  American  gentleman 
who  visited  the  town  shortly  afterwards;  and  (3)  from  a  Bulgarian  official. 
Strumnitsa  in  the  autumn  of  1912  was  under  a  mixed  control;  the  garrison  was 
Servian;  there  was  a  junior  Bulgaria^  civil  official;  and  Bulgarian  insurgents  were 
present  in  large  numbers.  A  commission  was  formed  under  the  presidency  of  the 
Servian  commander,  Major  Grbits,  and  with  him  there  sat  two  junior  Servian 
officers,  the  Bulgarian  sub-prefect  Lieutenant  Nicholas  Voultchev,  the  leader  of 
the  Bulgarian  bands,  voyevoda  Tchekov  (or  Jekov),  and  some  of  the  leading 
inhabitants.  The  local  Moslems  of  the  town  were  disarmed  by  a  house  to  house 
search.  Some  indiscriminate  killing  of  Moslems  took  place  in  the  streets,  and 
thereafter  an  order  was  issued  forbidding  any  Moslem  to  leave  his  house,  under 
pain  of  death.  A  local  gendarmerie  was  meanwhile  organized,  and  while  the 
Moslems  passively  awaited  their  fate,  a  gendarme  and  a  Servian  soldier  went 
from  house  to  house  summoning  them  one  by  one  before  the  commis- 


74  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

sion.  As  each  victim  came  before  the  judges,  Major  Grbits  inquired,  "Is 
he  good,  or  is  he  bad?"  There  was  no  discussion  and  no  defense. 
Each  member  had  his  personal  enemies,  and  no  one  ventured  to  inter- 
fere with  his  neighbor's  resentments.  One  voice  sufficed  to  condemn.  Hardly 
one  in  ten  of  those  who  were  summoned  escaped  the  death  sentence.  The 
victims  were  roughly  stripped  of  their  outer  clothing  and  bound  in  the  presence 
of  the  commission,  while  the  money  found  on  them  was  taken  by  Major  Grbits. 
The  condemned  Moslems  were  bound  in  threes,  taken  to  the  slaughter  house 
and  there  killed,  in  some  cases  after  torture  and  mutilation.  The  fortunate 
minority  received  a  certificate  which  permitted  them  to  live,  and  in  many  cases 
there  is  reason  to  believe  that  as  much  as  £T100  was  paid  for  it.  The  motive 
behind  these  atrocities  was  clearly  as  much  cupidity  as  race  hatred.  The  vic- 
tims included  not  only  the  citizens  of  Strumnitsa,  but  also  a  large  number  of 
fugitives  and  prisoners  from  the  surrounding  villages.  Our  Turkish  witnesses 
place  the  total  of  killed  at  the  improbable  figure  of  3,000  to  4,000 — a  guesswork 
estimate.  Our  American  and  Bulgarian  informants,  who  were  both  in  a  posi- 
tion to  make  a  careful  calculation,  placed  the  total  of  those  killed  in  this  proscrip- 
tion at  from  seven  to  eight  hundred.  It  is  fair  to  add  that  steps  were 
afterwards  taken  by  the  Bulgarian  courts-martial  to  prosecute  the  guilty  Bulga- 
rian official,  Voultchev,  and  the  Bulgarian  chief  of  bands,  Tchekov,  and  a  third 
person  named  Manov.  All  three  have  been  sentenced  to  fifteen  years'  hard 
labor.  The  Servian  government,  on  the  other  hand,  has  inflicted  no  punish- 
ment on  Major  Grbits,  who  was  the  senior  officer  and  the  person  ultimately 
responsible  for  these  atrocities. 

The  result  of  leaving  Bulgarian  bands  at  large  with  no  adequate  control 
was,  if  possible,  still  worse  in  the  Kukush  (Kilkish)  region.  Only  a  few  Bul- 
garian regulars  were  left  to  garrison  the  town  during  the  early  weeks  of  the 
war,  and  the  only  authority  which  could  make  itself  obeyed  was  that  which 
the  chief  of  bands,  Toma  of  Istip,  exercised  with  the  aid  of  a  commission  of 
local  Bulgarian  notables.  It  drew  up  lists  for  the  whole  district,  in  which  each 
of  the  Moslem  inhabitants  was  rated  at  a  certain  figure,  which  might  be  repre- 
sented as  a  poll-tax,  but  was  in  effect  a  ransom.  To  pay  this  ransom  the  Turks 
were  often  obliged  to  sell  everything  they  possessed.  Later,  a  band  arrived 
under  a  certain  Donchev,  a  notoriously  cruel  guerrilla  chief,  who  acted  on  his 
own  responsibility  and  has  been  disavowed  and  sentenced  to  death  by  the 
Macedonian  revolutionary  "internal  organization."  He  is  said  to  have  burned 
345  Turkish  houses  in  one  day  in  the  villages  of  Raionovo,  Planitsa,  and  Kukur- 
tevo,  shut  up  the  men  in  the  mosques  and  burned  them  alive  or  shot  them  down 
as  they  attempted  to  escape.  It  is  said  that  Donchev's  band  massacred  women  and 
children ;  and  this  statement  also  is  credited  by  Europeans  who  have  ample  local 
sources  of  information.  An  account  of  these  events  by  Pere  Michel,  the  head  of 
the  French  Catholic  mission  at  Kukush,  has  been  published.  (See  Appendix  A, 
No.  6.)  It  was  misused  and  distorted  in  some  Greek  and  French  newspapers, 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION  75 

as  though  it  referred  to  the  doings  of  the  Bulgarian  regular  army  shortly  before 
the  second  war.  It  was  undoubtedly  a  truthful  account  of  the  excesses  of  the 
Bulgarian  bands  during  the  autumn  of  1912. 

A  statement  from  a  local  Turk,  who  was  recommended  to  us  as  an  honest 
witness  by  a  European  resident,  will  be  found  in  Appendix  A  (No.  7).  Pere 
Michel's  statements,  it  should  be  added,  were  generally  corroborated  by  the 
Protestant  missionaries  who  worked  in  the  same  district.  The  Bulgarian  bands 
in  the  Kukush  region  were  left  for  some  weeks  unmolested  in  this  work  of  ex- 
tortion and  extermination.  There  is  ample  proof  that  they  slaughtered  many 
hundreds  of  disarmed  and  disbanded  Turkish  soldiers,  who  had  surrendered  to 
the  Greeks  at  Salonica,  and  were  traveling  through  Kukush  on  their  way  to 
their  homes  in  northern  Macedonia. 

The  responsibility  of  the  regular  Bulgarian  authorities  is  more  directly  in- 
dicated in  the  massacre  of  Turks  which  took  place  in  the  town  of  Serres  shortly 
after  its  capture.  Here  there  was  an  adequate  Bulgarian  garrison,  and  a  regu- 
lar administration.  We  have  before  us  a  full  statement  from  the  President  of 
the  Turkish  community  of  Serres,  which  is  confirmed  by  the  Austrian  vice- 
consul  (a  Greek),  and  other  Greek  residents.  Their  evidence  is  inevitably  biased 
and  exaggerated,  but  it  was  unfortunately  confirmed  in  its  main  outlines  by  a 
confidential  statement  made  to  us  by  an  American  gentleman,  who  was  active 
after  the  massacre  in  relieving  the  distress  among  the  Moslems.  The  events 
which  preceded  the  massacre  are  very  obscure.  Mysterious  shots  were  fired, 
and  a  large  number  of  Turkish  soldiers  were  supposed  (we  do  not  know  with 
what  truth)  to  be  in  hiding  in  the  town.  On  a  charitable  reading  of  the  facts 
it  is  fair  to  suppose  that  the  Bulgarian  authorities  feared  a  revolt.  This  may 
explain  but  can  not  excuse  the  slaughter  which  followed.  The  Turkish  version 
of  this  affair  will  be  found  in  Appendix  A  (No.  8).  The  estimates  given  by 
Turks  and  Greeks,  which  range  from  600  to  5,000  killed,  are  certainly  exagger- 
ated. Our  American  informant,  a  cautious  and  fair-minded  man,  with  a  long 
and  intimate  experience  of  Macedonia,  believed  that  the  number  of  killed  in 
the  town  was,  at  most  two  hundred.  He  insisted,  however,  that  the  massacre 
was  deliberate  and  unprovoked,  and  ths.t  it  was  accompanied  by  pillage  on  a  large 
scale  and  by  the  violation  of  many  Turkish  women  and  children.  Similar  ex- 
cesses were  perpetrated  in  the  villages.  The  instruments  of  this  atrocity  were 
chiefly  Macedonian  insurgents  (comitadjis) ,  but  they  acted  under  the  eyes  of 
the  Bulgarian  military  authorities,  who  had  in  Serres  a  regular  force  sufficient 
to  control  them. 

These  instances  should  suffice  to  give  some  idea  of  the  sufferings  of  the 
Moslem  population  during  the  early  weeks  of  the  occupation.  It  would  un- 
fortunately be  easy  to  multiply  them.  Details  will  be  found  in  the  Appendices 
of  a  minor  massacre,  much  exaggerated  in  the  press,  carried  out  at  Dedeagatch 
by  the  dregs  of  the  local  Christian  population  (Greeks  and  Armenians)  with 


76  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

the  aid  of  some  Bulgarian  privates  of  the  Macedonian  legion,  who  were  acci- 
dentally left  in  the  town  without  an  officer  (Appendix  A,  Nos.  9  and  10).  A 
Bulgarian  eye  witness  described  to  us  the  killing  of  a  large  number  of  local  Turks 
at  Uskub  by  Servians  in  the  early  days  of  the  occupation  (Appendix  A,  No.  11). 

Incidents  also  occurred  while  Bulgarian  regiments  were  on  the  march  which 
led  to  savage  reprisals.  A  volunteer  of  the  Macedonian  legion  (Opolchenie},  who 
was  previously  known  to  a  member  of  the  Commission  as  an  honorable  and 
truthful  man,  recounted  the  following  incident  as  the  one  example  of  brutality 
which  had  come  within  his  own  experience.  While  marching  through  Gumur- 
jina,  the  legion  saw  the  dead  bodies  of  about  fifty  murdered  Bulgarian  peasants. 
The  dead  body  of  a  woman  was  hanging  from  a  tree,  and  another  with  a  young 
baby  lay  dead  on  the  ground  with  their  eyes  gouged  out.  The  men  of  the 
legion  retaliated  by  shooting  all  the  Turkish  villagers  or  disbanded  soldiers 
whom  they  met  next  day  on  their  march,  and  killed  in  this  way  probably  some 
fifty  men  and  two  or  three  women.  The  officers  of  the  legion  endeavored  after- 
wards to  discover  the  culprits,  but  were  baffled  by  the  solidarity  of  the  men,  who 
considered  this  butchery  a  legitimate  reprisal.  The  Turks  with  whom  we  talked 
were  on  the  whole  agreed  that  the  period  of  extreme  brutality  was  confined 
to  the  early  weeks  of  the  first  war.  Many  of  them  praised  the  justice  of  the 
regular  Bulgarian  administration  which  was  afterwards  established.  From  sev- 
eral of  the  Bulgarian  officials  who  had  to  govern  turbulent  districts  (e,  g.,  Istip 
and  Drama)  infested  by  bands  with  an  inadequate  military  force  to  back  them, 
we  have  heard  in  detail  of  the  steps  which  they  took  to  regain  the  confidence 
of  the  Moslems.  Many  of  them  were  successful. 

A  real  effort  was  undoubtedly  made  to  check  the  lawlessness  of  the  bands 
and  to  deal  with  marauding  on  the  part  of  the  troops.  The  records  of  the 
courts-martial  which  we  have  before  us,  show  that  it  was  in  January,  1913,  that 
the  Bulgarian  headquarters  became  alarmed  at  the  frequency  and  gravity  of  the 
excesses  reported  from  the  occupied  territories.  A  circular  telegram  (see  Appen- 
dix A,  No.  13)  sent  to  commanders  and  governors  in  Macedonia  and  Thrace  en- 
joined them  to  institute  inquiries  into  all  excesses  committed  against  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  occupied  territories,  and  reminded  them  that  the  honor  of  the  army  was 
at  stake,  and  that  an  attitude  of  indifference  on  their  part  toward  the  crimes  of  in- 
dividuals would  lead  the  world  to  suppose  that  Bulgarian  civilization  was  not 
superior  to  that  of  the  enemy.  In  two  later  telegrams  the  courts-martial  were 
instructed  to  deal  promptly  with  such  charges  and  to  give  precedence  to  such 
cases  over  all  others,  more  especially  where  the  complaints  came  from  Turks. 
The  tone  of  these  instructions  is  all  that  could  be  desired.  It  is  disappointing  to 
learn  that  up  to  February  15,  1913,  the  courts-martial  in  Macedonia  had  passed 
sentence  on  only  ten  persons  for  murder,  eight  for  robbery  or  pillage,  and  two 
for  rape.  A  large  number  of  cases  was  in  the  stage  of  inquiry  ("instruction"), 
and  these  included  seventy-eight  cases  of  murder,  sixty-nine  of  pillage,  seven  of 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION  77 

rape,  seven  of  robbery,  disguised  as  taxation,  fourteen  of  arson,  and  eighty-one 
of  various  kinds  of  robbery  and  dishonesty.  Of  the  culprits  thirty-seven  were 
Macedonian  insurgents,  including  six  chiefs  of  bands  (voyevodas).  How  many 
of  these  cases  were  completed  and  how  many  of  the  culprits  were  actually  sen- 
tenced we  do  not  precisely  know,  since  the  archives  of  the  chief  Macedonian 
court-martial  were  lost  at  the  evacuation  of  Serres.  But  we  are  informed  that 
more  than  200  prisoners  belonging  to  the  Bulgarian  army  and  to  the  irregular 
bands  were  in  Serres  gaol  under  sentence  when  the  town  was  evacuated.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  they  were  then  released,  an  unfortunate  irregularity  which 
may  possibly  have  been  unavoidable.  These  facts  show  that  an  effort  was 
made  upon  a  considerable  scale  in  Macedonia  to  deal  with  the  excesses  com- 
mitted against  the  Turkish  population.  It  was  somewhat  tardy,  and  manifestly 
the  prompt  execution  in  the  early  weeks  of  the  war  of  some  of  the  more  notable 
criminals  would  have  produced  a  more  salutary  effect.  Public  opinion  in  the 
Balkans  does  not  condemn  excesses  committed  by  Christians  against  Moslems 
as  severely  as  neutral  onlookers  do.  That  is  inevitable,  given  the  historical 
conditions.  But  undoubtedly  the  chiefs  of  the  Bulgarian  army  did  make  an 
attempt  to  clear  its  honor,  and  the  attempt  was  successful  in  bringing  about  a 
great  improvement  in  the  conduct  of  the  troops  and  their  irregular  allies.  It  is, 
moreover,  creditable  to  the  Bulgarian  government  that  in  order  to  check  the 
spoliation  of  the  Moslems,  an  edict  was  issued  which  made  all  transfers  of  land 
during  the  period  of  the  war  illegal  and  invalid. 

It  remains  to  mention  the  practice  followed  by  the  Bulgarians,  over  a  wide 
area,  of  reconverting  the  pomaks  by  force  to  Christianity.  The  pomaks  are 
Bulgarians  by  race  and  language,  who  at  some  period  of  the  Turkish  conquest 
were  converted  by  force  to  Islam.  They  speak  no  Turkish,  and  retain  some 
traditional  memory  of  their  Christian  past;  but  circumstances  have  usually  made 
them  fanatical  Mohammedans.  They  number  in  the  newly  conquered  territo- 
ries at  least  80,000  persons,  and  are  chiefly  concentrated  to  the  north  and  east 
of  Nevrocop.  The  Bulgarian  Holy  Synod  conceived  the  design  of  converting 
them  en  masse,  and  it  was  frequently  able  to  reckon  on  the  support  of  the  mili- 
tary and  civil  authorities,  not  to  mention  the  insurgent  bands.  It  was  not 
usually  necessary  to  employ  actual  violence;  threats,  backed  by  the  manifest 
power  to  enforce  them,  commonly  sufficed  to  induce  whole  villages  to  submit  to 
the  ceremony  of  baptism.  The  policy  was  carried  out  systematically,  and  long 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  second  war,  the  pomaks  in  most  districts  conformed 
outwardly  to  the  Bulgarian  church,  and  listened  with  a  show  of  docility  to  the 
ministrations  of  the  priests  and  nuns  sent  by  the  Holy  Synod  to  instruct  them  in 
the  tenets  of  Christianity.  This  aberration,  in  sharp  contrast  to  the  toleration 
which  the  Bulgarian  Kingdom  has  usually  shown  to  the  Moslems  within  its 
frontiers,  must  rank  among  the  least  excusable  brutalities  of  the  war.  The 
Holy  Synod  argued  that  since  force  had  been  used  to  convert  the  pomaks  to 


78  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

Islam,  force  might  fairly  be  used  to  reverse  the  process.  The  argument  is  one 
proof  the  more  that  races  whose  minds  have  been  molded  for  centuries  by  the 
law  of  reprisal  and  the  practice  of  vengeance,  tend  to  a  common  level  of 
degradation. 

2.    THE  CONDUCT  OF  THE  BULGARIANS  IN  THE  SECOND  WAR 

The  charges  brought  by  the  Greeks  against  the  Bulgarians  are  already  pain- 
fully familiar  to  every  newspaper  reader.  Unlike  the  Bulgarians,  the  Greeks 
welcomed  war  correspondents,  and  every  resource  of  publicity  was  at  their  dis- 
posal, while  Bulgaria  itself  was  isolated  and  its  telegraphic  communications  cut. 
That  some  of  these  accusations  were  grossly  exaggerated  is  now  apparent.  Le 
Temps,  for  example,  reported  the  murder  of  the  Greek  Bishop  of  Doiran.  We 
saw  him  vigorous  and  apparently  alive  two  months  afterwards.  A  requiem 
mass  was  sung  for  the  Bishop  of  Kavala;  his  flock  welcomed  him  back  to 
them  while  we  were  in  Salonica.  The  correspondent  of  the  same  news- 
paper stated  that  he  personally  assisted  at  the  burial  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Serres,  who  was  savagely  mutilated  before  he  was  killed.  (Letter,  dated  Livo- 
novo,  July  23.)  This  distressing  experience  in  no  way  caused  this  prelate  to  in- 
terrupt his  duties,  which  he  still  performs. 

There  none  the  less  remains,  when  these  manifest  travesties  of  fact  are 
brushed  aside,  a  heavy  indictment  which  rests  upon  uncontrovertible  evidence. 
It  is  true  that  the  little  town  of  Doxato  was  burned  and  a  massacre  carried  out 
there  during  and  after  a  Bulgarian  attack.  It  is  true  that  the  town  of  Serres 
was  burned  during  a  Bulgarian  attack.  It  is  also  true  that  a  large  number  of 
civilians,  including  the  Bishop  of  Melnik  and  Demir-Hissar,  were  slaughtered 
or  executed  by  the  Bulgarians  in  the  latter  town.  The  task  of  the  Commission 
has  been  to  compare  the  evidence  from  both  sides  regarding  these  events,  and 
to  form  a  judgment  on  the  circumstances  which  in  some  degree  explain  them. 
The  Greek  charges  are  in  each  case  substantially  true,  but  in  no  case  do  they 
state  the  whole  truth. 

In  forming  an  opinion  upon  the  series  of  excesses  which  marked  the  Bulga- 
rian withdrawal  from  southeastern  Macedonia,  it  is  necessary  to  recall  the  fact 
that  the  Bulgarians  were  here  occupying  a  country  whose  population  is  mainly 
Greek  and  Turkish.  The  Bulgarian  garrisons  were  small,  and  they  found  them- 
selves on  the  outbreak  of  the  second  war  in  a  hostile  country.  The  Greek  pop- 
ulation of  these  regions  is  wealthy  and  intensely  patriotic.  In  several  Greek 
centers  insurgent  organizations  (andartes)  existed.  Arms  had  been  collected, 
and  some  experienced  guerrilla  chiefs  were  believed  to  be  in  hiding,  -and  ready 
to  lead  the  local  population.  All  of  this  in  existing  conditions  was  creditable  to 
Greek  patriotism;  their  race  was  at  war  with  Bulgarians,  and  the  more  enter- 
prising and  courageous  among  them  intended  to  take  their  share  as  auxiliaries 
of  the  Greek  army  in  driving  the  Bulgarians  from  their  country.  From  a  nation- 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NONCOMBATANT   POPULATION 


79 


alist  standpoint,  this  was  morally  their  right  and  seme  might  even  say  their  duty. 
But  it  is  equally  clear  that  the  Bulgarians,  wherever  they  found  themselves  op- 
posed by  the  armed  civil  population,  had  also  a  right  to  take  steps  to  protect 
themselves.  The  steps  which  they  elected  to  take  in  some  places  grossly  ex- 
ceeded the  limits  of  legitimate  defense  or  allowable  reprisal. 

THE   MASSACRE  AT  DOXATO 

Doxato  was  a  thriving  country  town,  situated  between  Drama  and  Kavala 
in  the  center  of  a  rich  tobacco  growing  district.  It  had  a  large  school,  and 
counted  several  wealthy  and  educated  families  among  its  2,700  Greek  inhabit- 
ants. It  was  proud  of  its  Hellenic  character,  and  formed  with  two  neighboring 
villages  a  compact  Greek  island  in  a  rural  population  which  was  almost  exclu- 
sively Turkish.  A  member  of  the  Commission  has  visited  its  ruins.  Only  thirty 
homes  are  left  intact  among  its  270  Greek  houses.  Enough  remains  of  the  walls 
to  show  that  the  little  town  was  well  built  and  prosperous,  and  to  suggest  that 
the  conflagration  must  have  caused  grievous  material  loss  to  the  inhabitants. 
The  estimate  of  killed  (at  first  said  to  number  over  2,000)  which  is  now  gen- 
erally accepted  by  the  Greeks,  is  600.  We  have  had  communicated  to  us  an  ex- 
tract from  an  official  Greek  report  in  which  500  is  given  as  an  outside  figure. 

A  large  proportion,  probably  one-half,  of  this  total  consisted  of  civilians  who 
had  taken  up  arms.  Women  and  children  to  the  number  of  over  a  hundred 
were  massacred  in  a  single  house,  and  the  slaughter  was  carried  out  with  every 


FIG.  1. — RUINS  OF  DOXATO 


so 


REPORT   OF   THE    BALKAN    COMMISSION 


FIG.  2. — FINDING  THE  BODIES  OF  VICTIMS  AT  DOXATO 

conceivable  circumstance  of  barbarity.  We  print  in  Appendix  B  (No.  14)  a 
letter  in  which  Commander  Cardale,  a  British  naval  officer  in  the  Greek  service, 
describes  the  condition  of  the  village  when  he  visited  it  shortly  after  the  massacre. 
We  print  in  Appendix  B,  Bulgarian  accounts  of  the  Doxato  affair.  Mr. 
Dobrev,  who  was  the  prefect  of  Drama  and  earned  the  good  opinion  of  the  Greeks 
by  his  conduct  there  (see  the  Greek  pamphlet  Atrocites  Bulgares,  p.  49),  has  told 
the  whole  story  with  evident  frankness.  (Appendix  B,  No.  16.)  Captain  So- 
froniev  of  the  Royal  Guard,  who  commanded  the  two  squadrons  of  cavalry 
which  operated  against  Doxato,  relates  his  own  part  in  the  affair  clearly,  and 
has  shown  us  the  reports  of  his  scouts  penciled  on  official  paper.  (See  Appendix 
B,  No.  15.)  Lieutenant  Milev  in  a  communicated  deposition  describes  his  expe- 
riences with  the  infantry,  and  Lieutenant  Colonel  Barnev  explains  his  military 
dispositions.  (See  Appendix  B,  Nos.  16a  and  16b.)  These  four  depositions 
leave  no  doubt  in  the  mind  of  the  Commission  that  the  Greeks  had  organized  a 
formidable  military  movement  among  the  local  population ;  that  Doxato  was  one 
of  its  centers ;  and  that  several  hundreds  of  armed  men  were  concentrated  there. 
Provocation  had  been  given  not  only  by  the  wanton  and  barbarous  slaughter  by 
Greeks  of  Moslem  noncombatants,  but  also  by  a  successful  attack  at  Doxato  upon 
a  Bulgarian  convoy.  There  was,  therefore,  justification  for  the  order  given 
from  the  Bulgarian  headquarters  to  attack  the  Greek  insurgents  concentrated 
in  Doxato. 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   XOXCOMBATANT   POPULATION 


81 


It  appears  from  Captain  Sofroniev's  report  that  his  men  met  with  an  ob- 
stinate resistance  from  these  Greek  andartes  and  that  one  of  his  two  squadrons 
lost  seventeen  killed  and  twenty-four  wounded  in  the  attack.  In  the  charge  by 
which  he  finally  dispersed  them,  he  believes  that  his  men  killed  at  least  150 
Greeks,  and  perhaps  double  this  number.  These  were,  he  assures  us,  all  armed 
men  and  combatants. 

We  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  an  irregular  and  inexperienced  force  can 
have  resisted  cavalry  with  an  obstinacy  that  would  justify  so  large  a  slaughter 
as  this.  A  woman,  moreover,  was  wounded  in  this  charge.  (See  Appendix  B, 
No.  16.)  Captain  Sofroniev  states  that  his  men  took  prisoners.  He  consigned 
these  prisoners  to  the  charge  of  the  Turkish  peasants  who  had  come  up  from 
neighboring  villages,  full  of  resentment  for  Greek  excesses  against  their  neighbors. 
He  allowed  these  Turks  to  arm  themselves  with  the  weapons  of  the  defeated  Greek 
insurgents.  He  might  as  well  have  ordered  the  massacre  of  his  prisoners.  These 
Turks  had  recent  grievances  against  the  Greeks,  and  they  had  come  to  Doxato 
in  the  rear  of  the  Bulgarian  force  for  pillage  and  revenge. 

The  cavalry  operated  outside  the  village.  The  force  which  entered  it  was 
an  infantry  detachment  comprised  in  great  part  of  Bulgarian  Moslems  (po- 
maks).  According  to  Mr.  Dobrev,  who  is  clearly  the  franker  witness,  it  became 
excited  when  a  magazine  of  cartridges  exploded  in  the  village,  and  began  to 
kill  indiscriminately  all  the  inhabitants  whom  it  met  in  the  streets,  including 
some  children.  It  remained,  however,  only  a  short  while  in  Doxato. 


FIG.  3. — GATHERING  THE  BODIES  OF  VICTIMS 


82 


REPORT    OF   THE    BALKAN    COMMISSION 


FIG.  4. — BODIES  OF  SLAIN  PEASANTS 

Lieutenant  Milev's  account  attributes  this  slaughter  to  the  local  Turks,  and 
states  that  two  of  them  were  executed  for  their  crimes.  He  represents  the  in- 
habitants whom  his  men  killed  as  insurgents. 

We  can  not  explain  this  discrepancy.  It  is,  however,  clear  that  the 
systematic  massacre  was  carried  out  by  the  local  Turks  who  were  left 
in  possession  of  the  place  for  the  better  part  of  two  days.  They  pil- 
laged, burned,  and  slaughtered  at  their  leisure,  nor  did  they  spare  even  the 
women  who  had  taken  refuge  in  the  houses  of  friendly  Turks.  So  far  there  is 
little  difference  between  Commander  Cardale's  version  of  events,  based  on  local 
Greek  sources,  and  the  statements  of  our  Bulgarian  witnesses.  What  we  heard 
ourselves  in  the  village  some  weeks  later  agreed  with  what  Commander  Car- 
dale  has  reported.  The  Bulgarian  troops,  after  a  sharp  engagement,  began  the 
killing  of  the  inhabitants,  but  presently  desisted.  "The  greater  part  of  the 
massacre,"  as  Commander  Cardale  puts  it,  "was  done  by  the  Turks."  He  quotes, 
without  endorsing  it,  the  statement  of  the  survivors  that  the  Turks  acted  under 
the  "direction"  or  "incitement"  of  Bulgarian  officers.  We  gather  that  he  heard 
no  convincing  evidence  on  this  head,  nor  did  we  meet  with  anyone  who  had 
personally  heard  or  seen  Bulgarian  officers  giving  directions  to  massacre.  That 
charge  may  be  dismissed  as  baseless.  But  some  part  of  the  responsibility  for 
the  slaughter  falls,  none  the  less,  upon  the  Bulgarian  officers.  They  armed  the 
Turks  and  left  them  in  control  of  the  village.  They  must  have  known  what 
would  follow.  The  employment  of  Turkish  bashi-basouks  as  allies  against  de- 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION  83 

fenseless  Christian  villagers  was  an  offense  of  which  Greeks,  Servians,  and  Bul- 
garians were  all  guilty  upon  occasion.  No  officer  in  the  Balkans  could  take  this 
step  without  foreseeing  that  massacre  must  result  from  it. 

It  is  fair  none  the  less  to  note  that  the  Bulgarians  were  in  a  difficult  posi- 
tion. They  could  not  occupy  the  village  permanently,  for  they  were  threatened 
by  Greek  columns  marching  from  several  quarters.  To  leave  the  Turks  un- 
armed was  to  expose  them  to  Greek  excesses.  To  arm  the  Turks  was,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  condemn  the  Greek  inhabitants  to  massacre.  A  culpable  error 
of  judgment  was  committed  in  circumstances  which  admitted  only  of  a  choice 
of  evils.  While  emphasizing  the  heavy  responsibility  which  falls  on  the  Bulga- 
rian officers  for  this  catastrophe,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  conclude  that  the  massa- 
cre at  Doxato  was  a  Turkish  and  not  a  Bulgarian  atrocity. 

THE    MASSACRE   AND    CONFLAGRATION    OF   SERRES 

Serres  is  the  largest  town  of  the  interior  of  eastern  Macedonia.  The  to- 
bacco trade  had  brought  considerable  wealth  to  its  30,000  inhabitants;  and  it 
possessed  in  its  churches,  schools  and  hospitals  the  outward  signs  of  the  public 
spirit  of  its  Greek  community.  The  villages  around  it  are  Bulgarian  to 
the  north  and  west,  but  a  rural  Greek  population  approaches  it  from  the  south 
and  east.  The  town  itself  is  predominantly  Greek,  with  the  usual  Jewish  and 
Turkish  admixture.  The  Bulgarians  formed  but  a  small  minority.  From  Octo- 
ber to  June  the  town  was  under  a  Bulgarian  occupation,  and  as  the  second 
war  drew  near,  the  relations  of  the  garrison  and  the  citizens  became  increasingly 
hostile.  The  Bulgarian  authorities  believed  that  the  Greeks  were  arming 
secretly,  that  andartes  (Greek  insurgents)  were  concealed  in  the  town,  and  that 
a  revolt  was  in  preparation.  Five  notables  of  the  town  were  arrested  on  July 
1  with  the  idea  of  intimidating  the  population.  On  Friday,  July  4,  the  defeat  of 
the  Bulgarian  forces  to  the  south  of  Serres  rendered  the  position  untenable,  and 
arrangements  were  made  for  the  evacuation  of  the  town.  General  Voulkov,  the 
Governor  of  Macedonia,  and  his  staff  left  on  the  evening  of  Saturday,  July  5. 
The  retirement  was  hastily  planned  and  ill  executed.  There  is  evidence  from 
Greeks  and  Turks,  and  from  one  of  the  American  residents,  Mr.  Moore,  that  some 
of  the  troops  found  time  to  pillage  before  withdrawing.  On  the  other  hand, 
stores  of  Bulgarian  munitions,  including  rifles,  were  abandoned  in  the  town, 
and  some  of  the  archives  were  also  left  behind.  We  gather  that  there  was  some 
conflict  of  authority  among  the  superior  Bulgarian  officers.  (See  evidence  of 
Commandant  Moustakov,  Appendix  B,  No.  26.) 

The  plain  fact  is  that  at  this  central  point  the  organization  and  discipline  of 
the  Bulgarian  troops  broke  down.  Some  excesses,  as  one  would  expect,  undoubt- 
edly occurred,  but  the  Greek  evidence  on  this  matter  is  untrustworthy.  Com- 
mandant Moustakov  believes  that  the  notables  who  had  been  arrested  were  re- 
leased. We  find,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  semiofficial  Greek  pamphlet  Atro cites 


84 


REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 


FIG.  5. — VICTIMS  WHO  ESCAPED  THE  SERRES  SLAUGHTER 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION 


85 


FIG.  6. — RUINS  OF  SERRES 

Bulgares,  the  statement  (p.  25)  that  the  bodies  of  four  Greek  notables  were 
found  outside  the  town  killed  by  bayonet  thrusts ;  among  them  was  the  corpse 
of  the  director  of  the  Orient  bank.  For  this  assertion  the  authority  of  the  Ital- 
ian and  Austrian  consuls  general  of  Salonica  is  claimed.  (See  Appendix  B,  No. 
17.)  The  member  of  our  Commission  who  visited  Serres  had  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  this  gentleman,  Mr.  Ghine,  alive,  well,  and  unharmed,  and  enjoyed  his 
hospitality.  Such  discoveries  as  this  are  a  warning  that  even  official  statements 
regarding  these  events  must  be  subjected  to  careful  scrutiny.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  some  of  the  prisoners  who  were  in  gaol  when  the  Bulgarians 
left  the  town,  were  slaughtered.  This  was  done  presumably  by  their  gaolers  with- 
out orders.  The  imprisoned  Bulgarians,  including  many  comitadfis,  were  prob- 
ably released ;  it  is  conceivable  that  they  had  a  hand  in  these  excesses.  The 
fact  of  a  butchery  in  the  prison  is  placed  beyond  doubt  by  the  evidence  of  Mr. 
Arrington,  the  manager  of  the  American  Tobacco  Company's  branch.  His  por- 
ter (cavass).  a  Greek,  had  been  arrested  some  days  before,  apparently  because 
a  rumor  had  got  abroad  that  the  famous  Greek  guerrilla  chief,  Captain  Doukas, 
was  in  the  town  disguised  as  the  cavass  of  a  tobacco  warehouse.  Mr.  Arring- 
ton demanded  the  release  of  his  employe  without  result.  After  the  departure 
of  the  last  of  the  Bulgarian  troops,  Mr.  Arrington  visited  the  prison  and  found 
there  a  heap  of  thirteen  corpses,  among  which  was  his  man,  severely  wounded. 
He  died  shortly  aftenvards  in  hospital,  but  was  able  to  tell  his  story.  His  Bul- 
garian gaoler  had  demanded  a  ransom  of  £10  for  his  release  and  would  allow  him 


86 


REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 


00* 

0 


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THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION 


87 


no  facilities  to  procure  it  from  outside.  "We  do  things  methodically  here," 
said  the  gaoler.  "You  have  four  hours  to  live.  Every  half  hour  you  will  be 
beaten,  and  at  the  end  you  will  be  killed."  He  was  in  fact  made  to  lie  on  his 
back  and  was  pinned  to  the  floor  with  a  bayonet.  Mr.  Arrington  stated  that  his 
arms  and  back,  where  he  had  been  beaten,  were  "as  black  as  his  boots."  The 
other  twelve  prisoners  had  evidently  been  treated  with  equal  barbarity. 

The  main  body  of  the  Bulgarian  garrison,  with  the  headquarters,  withdrew 
from  Serres  on  Saturday,  July  5.  A  panic  followed,  and  a  squadron  of  dis- 
mounted Bulgarian  cavalry  paraded  the  town  to  maintain  order.  The  Greek 
irregulars  and  armed  citizens  were  already  under  arms,  and  fired  from  some 


FIG.  9. — RUINS  OF  SERRES 

of  the  houses  at  this  squadron.  It  camped  that  night  outside  the  town,  and  en- 
tered it  again  on  Sunday,  but  apparently  without  attempting  to  maintain  com- 
plete control.  On  Monday,  July  7  (if  not  on  Sunday),  the  effective  authority 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  local  Greeks.  The  Archbishop  was  recognized 
as  governor  of  the  town,  and  at  his  palace  there  sat  in  permanence  a  commis- 
sion of  the  local  inhabitants.  Thirty  armed  Greeks  wearing  the  evzone  (high- 
lander)  uniform,  who  were,  however,  probably  irregulars  (andartes),  had  ar- 
rived in  Serres,  and  one  witness  states  that  they  were  under  the  command  of 
Captain  Doukas.  A  Russian  doctor  in  the  Bulgarian  sanitary  service  (Dr. 
Klugmann,  see  Appendix  B,  No.  22),  who  was  left  in  the  town,  heard  on  Monday 
a  Greek  priest  summoning  the  inhabitants  to  the  Bishop's  palace,  where  arms  were 


88 


REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 


FIG.  10. — RUINS  OF  SERRES 

distributed,  first  to  the  Greeks,  and  later  to  the  Turks.  From  Monday  morning 
to  Thursday  evening  these  Greek  irregulars  and  the  citizen  militia  which  they 
organized  were  in  possession  of  the  town.  Thrice  they  were  threatened  by  small 
Bulgarian  detachments,  which  returned  and  skirmished  on  the  hills  outside  the 
town  and  at  the  distant  railway  station.  But  these  Bulgarian  scouts  were  not 
in  sufficient  force  to  enter  the  town.  A  telegram  dispatched  on  Thursday  by 
the  Archbishop  to  King  Constantine  (see  Le  Temps,  July  13),  begs  him  to  hasten 
to  occupy  the  town,  which  is,  he  says,  defending  itself  successfully  against  the 


FIG.   11. — RUINS  OF  SESRES 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION  89 

attacks  of  the  Bulgarians.  He  mentions  that  he  is  governing  the  town,  and 
states  that  it  has  been  abandoned  for  a  week  by  the  Bulgarian  authorities.  He 
fears,  however,  that  the  citizens'  power  of  resistance  may  soon  be  exhausted. 
These  rather  aimless  Bulgarian  attacks  must  have  contributed  to  excite  the  local 
Greeks,  and  to  inflame  a  spirit  of  vengeance. 

The  main  concern  of  the  Archbishop's  Greek  militia  during  this  week  was 
apparently  to  hunt  down  the  Bulgarian  population  within  the  town  and  in  some 
of  the  neighboring  villages.  It  is  conceivable  that  this  measure  may  have  been 
dictated  in  the  first  instance  by  the  fear  that  the  small  Bulgarian  minority  inside 
Serres  would  cooperate  with  the  enemy  who  attacked  it  from  without.  An 
armed  Greek  mob  followed  a  few  uniformed  men  from  house  to  house,  threat- 
ening the  Bulgarians  and  all  who  should  assist  them  to  hide.  Their  houses 
were  pillaged  and  their  wives  ill  treated,  while  the  men  were  arrested  and  taken 
singly  or  in  batches  to  the  Bishop's  palace;  there  they  were  brought  before 
a  commission  of  laymen  over  whom  a  priest  presided.  Whatever  money  they 
possessed  was  taken  from  them  by  this  priest,  and  the  only  question  asked  about 
them  was,  whether  they  were  or  were  not  Bulgarians.  This  process  was  wit- 
nessed by  Dr.  Klugmann,  and  the  testimony  of  this  Russian  doctor  entirely  con- 
firms that  of  our  Bulgarian  peasant  witnesses.  From  the  bishopric  the  pris- 
oners were  taken  to  the  neighboring  Greek  girls'  high  school.  In  the  school  they 
were  closely  confined  in  several  rooms  by  fifties  and  sixties.  Fresh  batches  ar- 
rived continuously  from  the  town  and  from  the  villages,  until  the  total  number 
of  imprisoned  Bulgarians  reached  200  or  250.  The  gaolers  were  in  part  citizens 
of  Serres,  some  of  whom  can  be  named,  and  in  part  uniformed  irregulars.  From 
the  first  they  behaved  with  gross  cruelty.  The  prisoners  were  tightly  bound  and 
beaten  with  the  butt  ends  of  rifles.  The  plan  of  the  gaolers  was  apparently 
to  slaughter  their  prisoners  in  batches,  and  they  were  led  two  by  two  to  an  upper 
room,  where  they  were  killed,  usually  by  repeated  wounds  in  the  head  and  neck 
inflicted  with  a  butcher's  knife  or  a  Martini  bayonet.  Each  of  the  butchers 
aimed  at  accounting  for  fourteen  men,  which  was  apparently  the  number  which 
each  could  bury  during  the  night.  The  massacre  went  on  in  this  leisurely  way 
until  Friday,  the  llth.  The  prisoners  included  a  few  captured  Bulgarian  sol- 
diers, a  few  peasants  taken  with  arms  in  their  hands  (see  evidence  of  the  vil- 
lager Lazarov,  Appendix  B,  No.  20),  and  at  least  one  local  Bulgarian,  Christo 
Dimitrov  (Appendix  B,  No.  19),  who  was  known  to  be  an  active  associate  of  the 
Bulgarian  bands.  The  immense  majority  were,  however,  inoffensive  tradesmen  or 
peasants  whose  only  offense  was  that  they  were  Bulgarians.  Among  them  were 
four  women,  who  were  killed  with  the  rest.  The  only  mitigating  circumstance 
is  that  five  lads  were  released  in  pity  for  their  youth,  after  seeing  their  fathers 
killed  before  their  eyes.  (See  Blagoi  Petrov,  Appendix  B,  No.  21.)  We  are 
unwilling  to  dwell  on  the  detailed  barbarities  of  this  butchery,  of  which  more  than 
enough  is  recorded  in  the  appendices. 


90  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 

We  must  here  anticipate  a  part  of  the  narrative  to  explain  that  in  the  early 
morning  of  Friday,  July  11,  a  Bulgarian  regular  force  with  cavalry  and  light 
artillery  reached  Serres,  engaged  the  militia  outside  the  town,  defeated  it,  and 
began  toward  noon  to  penetrate  into  the  town  itself.  There  were  still  sixty  or 
seventy  of  the  Bulgarian  prisoners  alive,  and  their  gaolers,  alarmed  by  the  sound 
of  cannon  in  the  distance,  resolved  to  finish  their  work  rapidly.  Two  at  least 
of  the  prisoners  (Angelov  and  Limonov)  contrived  to  overpower  the  sentinels 
and  escaped.  Some  of  them,  however,  were  bound  and  others  were  too  en- 
feebled or  too  terrified  to  save  themselves.  They  were  led  to  the  slaughter  by 
fours  and  fives,  but  the  killing  this  day  was  inefficient,  and  at  least  ten  of  the 
prisoners  fell  among  the  heaps  of  corpses,  severely  wounded  indeed,  but  still 
alive.  They  recovered  consciousness  in  the  early  afternoon,  to  realize  that  their 
gaolers  had  fled,  that  the  town  was  on  fire,  and  that  the  Bulgarian  troops  were 
not  far  distant.  Ten  of  them  struggled  out  of  the  school,  and  eight  had  strength 
enough  to  reach  safety  and  their  countrymen. 

The  Commission  saw  three  of  these  fugitives  from  the  Serres  massacre, 
(Karanfilov,  Dimitrov,  and  Lazarov,  Appendix  B,  Nos.  18,  19,  20),  who  all  bore 
the  fresh  scars  of  their  wounds.  These  wounds,  chiefly  in  the  head  and  neck, 
could  have  been  received  only  at  close  quarters.  They  were  such  wounds  as  a 
butcher  would  inflict,  who  was  attempting  to  slaughter  men  as  he  would  slaughter 
sheep.  The  evidence  of  these  three,  given  separately,  was  mutually  consistent. 
We  questioned  a  fourth  witness,  the  lad  Blagoi  Petrov,  who  was  released.  We 
were  also  supplied  with  the  written  depositions,  backed  by  photographs  showing 
their  injuries,  of  three  other  wounded  survivors  of  the  massacre,  who  had  found 
refuge  in  distant  parts  of  Bulgaria  which  we  were  unable  to  visit.  (See  Appen- 
dix D,  Nos.  56,  57,  58.)  Among  these  was  George  Belev,  a  Protestant,  to  whose 
honesty  and  high  character  the  American  missionaries  of  Samakov  paid  a  high 
tribute.  The  written  depositions  of  the  two  men  who  escaped  by  rushing  the  sen- 
tinels, afforded  another  element  of  confirmation.  Dr.  Klugmann's  evidence,  given 
to  us  in  person,  is  valuable  as  a  description  of  the  way  in  which  the  Bulgarian  ci- 
vilians of  Serres  were  hunted  down  and  arrested.  The  Commission  finds  this  evi- 
dence irresistible,  and  is  forced  to  conclude  that  a  massacre  of  Bulgarians  to  the 
number  of  about  two  hundred,  most  of  them  inoffensive  and  noncombatant  civil- 
ians, was  carried  out  in  Serres  by  the  Greek  militia  with  revolting  cruelty.  The 
victims  were  arrested  and  imprisoned  under  the  authority  of  the  Archbishop. 
It  is  possible  that  he  may  have  been  misled  by  his  subordinates,  and  that  they 
may  have  disobeyed  his  orders.  But  the  fact  that  when  he  visited  the  prison 
on  Thursday,  he  assured  the  survivors  that  their  lives  would  be  spared,  sug- 
gests that  he  knew  that  they  were  in  danger. 

The  last  stage  of  the  episode  of  Serres  began  on  Friday,  the  llth.  Partly 
because  they  had  left  large  stores  of  munitions  in  the  town,  partly  because  ru- 
mors of  the  schoolhouse  massacre  had  reached  them,  the  Bulgarians  were  anx- 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION  91 

ious  to  reoccupy  the  town.  Their  small  detachments  had  been  repulsed,  and 
it  was  with  a  battalion  and  a  half  of  infantry,  a  squadron  of  horse  and  four 
guns,  that  Commandant  Kirpikov  marched  against  Serres  from  Zernovo,  and 
at  dawn  approached  the  hills  which  command  it.  His  clear  account  of  his  mili- 
tary dispositions  will  be  found  in  Appendix  B  (No.  23).  He  overcame  the  re- 
sistance of  the  Greek  militia  posted  to  the  number  of  about  1,000  men  on 
the  hills,  without  much  difficulty.  In  attempting  toward  noon  to  penetrate  into  the 
town,  his  troops  met  with  a  heavy  fire  from  several  large  houses  held  by  the 
Greeks.  Against  these  he  finally  used  his  guns.  From  noon  onward  the  town 
was  in  flames  at  several  points.  The  commandant  does  not  admit  that  his 
shells  caused  the  conflagration,  but  in  this  matter  probability  is  against  him. 
One  witness,  George  Belev,  states  that  the  schoolhouse  was  set  on  fire  by  a  shell. 
The  commandant  states  further  that  the  Greeks  themselves,  who  were  as  reck- 
less as  the  Bulgarians,  fired  certain  houses  which  contained  their  own  stores  of 
munitions.  It  is  probable  that  the  Bulgarians  also  set  on  fire  the  buildings  in 
which  their  own  stores  were  housed.  Both  Greeks  and  Bulgarians  state  that  a 
high  wind  was  blowing  during  the  afternoon.  Serres  was  a  crowded  town, 
closely  built  in  the  oriental  fashion,  with  houses  constructed  mainly  of  wood.  The 
summer  had  been  hot  and  dry.  It  is  not  surprising  that  the  town  blazed.  We 
must  give  due  weight  to  the  belief  universally  held  by  the  Greek  inhabitants  that 
the  town  was  deliberately  set  on  fire  by  the  Bulgarian  troops.  The  inhabitants  for 
the  most  part  had  fled,  and  few  "of  them  saw  what  happened;  but  one  eye 
witness  states  that  the  soldiers  used  petroleum  and  acted  on  a  systematic  plan. 
This  witness  (quoted  in  Appendix  B,  No.  17)  is  a  local  Turk  who  had  taken 
service  under  the  Bulgarians  as  a  police  officer  while  they  were  still  at  war  with 
his  country.  That  is  not  a  record  which  inspires  confidence.  On  the  other  hand, 
Dr.  Yankov,  a  legal  official  who  accompanied  the  Bulgarian  troops,  states  that  he 
personally  made  efforts  to  check  the  flames. 

The  general  impression  conveyed  by  all  the  evidence  before  us,  and  especially 
that  of  the  Russian  Dr.  Laznev  (see  Appendix  D,  No.  57),  is  that  the  Bulgarian 
troops  were  hotly  engaged  throughout  the  afternoon,  first  with  the  Greek  militia 
and  then  with  the  main  Greek  army.  The  Greek  forces  advanced  in  large  numbers 
and  with  artillery  from  two  directions  to  relieve  the  town,  and  compelled  the 
Bulgarians  to  retreat  before  sundown.  Their  shells  also  fell  in  the  town.  The 
Bulgarians  were  not  in  undisturbed  possession  for  so  much  as  an  hour,  and  it 
is  difficult  to  believe  that  they  can  have  had  leisure  for  much  systematic  incen- 
diarism. On  the  other  hand,  it  is  indisputable  that  some  Bulgarian  villagers  who 
followed  the  troops  did  deliberately  burn  houses  (see  evidence  of  Lazar  Tomov, 
Appendix  B,  No.  25),  and  that  a  mob  comprised  partly  of  Bulgarians  and  partly 
of  Turks  pillaged  and  burned  while  the  troops  were  fighting.  It  is  probable  that 
some  of  the  Bulgarian  troops,  who  seem  to  have  been,  as  at  Doxato,  a  very 
mixed  force  which  included  some  pomak  (Moslem)  levies,  joined  in  this  work. 


92  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 

The  Bulgarians  knew  that  the  Greeks  were  burning  their  villages,  and  some  of 
them  had  heard  of  the  schoolhouse  massacre.  Any  soldiers  in  the  world  would 
think  of  vengeance  under  these  conditions.  In  two  notorious  instances  leading 
residents  were  blackmailed.  The  experiences  of  Mr.  Zlatkos,  the  Greek  gentle- 
man who  acts  as  Austro-Hungarian  consul,  are  related  in  Appendix  B  (No. 
17a).  His  own  account  must  be  compared  with  the  Bulgarian  version,  which 
suggests  that  some  of  his  fears  were  baseless.  The  action  of  the  Bulgarian 
commander  in  shelling  the  masses  of  armed  peasants  outside  the  town  appears 
to  us  to  have  been  questionable.  Among  them  there  must  have  been  many  non- 
combatant  fugitives.  His  use  of  artillery  against  an  unfortified  town  was  a 
still  graver  abuse  of  the  laws  of  civilized  warfare. 

To  sum  up,  we  must  conclude  that  the  Greek  quarter  of  Serres  was  burned 
by  the  Bulgarians  in  the  course  of  their  attack  on  the  town,  but  the  evidence  be- 
fore us  does  not  suffice  to  establish  the  Greek  accusation,  that  the  burning  was 
a  part  of  the  plan  conceived  by  the  Bulgarian  headquarters.  But  unquestion- 
ably the  whole  conduct  both  of  the  attack  and  of  the  defense  contributed  to 
bring  about  the  conflagration,  and  some  of  the  attacking  force  did  undoubtedly 
burn  houses.  There  is,  in  short,  no  trustworthy  evidence  of  premeditated  or  of- 
ficial incendiarism,  but  the  responsibility  for  the  burning  of  Serres  none  the 
less  falls  mainly  upon  the  Bulgarian  army.  The  result  was  the  destruction  of 
4,000  out  of  6,000  houses,  the  impoverishment  of  a  large  population,  and  in  all 
likelihood  the  painful  death  of  many  of  the  aged  and  infirm,  who  could  not  make 
good  their  escape.  The  episode  of  Serres  is  deeply  discreditable  alike  to  Greeks 
and  Bulgarians. 

EVENTS   AT   DEMIR-HISSAR 

The  events  which  took  place  at  Demir-Hissar  between  the  5th  and  10th  of 
July  possess  a  certain  importance,  because  they  were  used  as  a  pretext  for  the 
"reprisals"  of  the  Greek  army  at  the  expense  of  the  Bulgarian  population.  (See 
King  Constantine's  telegram.  Appendix  C,  No.  29.)  We  shall  have  occasion  to 
point  out  that  the  Greek  excesses  began  in  and  around  Kukush  some  days  before 
the  Bulgarian  provocation  at  Demir-Hissar. 

That  Demir-Hissar  was  the  center  of  excesses  committed  on  both  sides  is 
indisputable.  The  facts  are  confused,  and  the  evidence  before  us  more  than 
usually  contradictory.  This  is  not  surprising  in  the  circumstances.  The  Bulga- 
rian army,  beaten  in  the  south,  was  fleeing  in  some  disorder  through  Demir- 
Hissar  to  the  narrow  defile  of  the  Struma  above  this  little  town.  The  Greeks 
of  the  town,  seeing  their  confusion,  determined  to  profit  by  it,  took  up  arms  and 
fell  upon  the  Bulgarian  wounded,  the  baggage  trains,  and  the  fugitive  peasants. 
They  rose  too  soon  and  exposed  themselves  to  Bulgarian  reprisals.  When  the 
Greek  army  at  length  marched  in,  it  found  a  scene  of  carnage  and  horror.  The 
Greek  inhabitants  had  slaughtered  defenseless  Bulgarians,  and  the  Bulgarian 
rear  guard  had  exacted  vengeance. 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION  93 

We  print  in  Appendix  B  (Nos.  27,  27a,  28,  28a)  both  the  Greek  and  the  Bul- 
garian narratives  of  this  affair.  The  Greeks  as  usual  suppress  all  mention  of  the 
provocation  which  the  inhabitants  had  given.  The  Bulgarian  account  is  silent  as  to 
the  manner  in  which  their  reprisals  were  carried  out.  Both  narratives  contain  in- 
accuracies, and  neither  of  them  tells  more  than  a  part  of  the  truth.  Nor  are  we 
satisfied  that  the  whole  truth  can  be  reached  by  the  simple  method  of  completing 
one  story  by  means  of  the  other.  The  Greek  account  is  the  more  detailed  and  defi- 
nite of  the  two  for  the  simple  reason  that  the  Greeks  remained  in  possession  of  the 
town,  and  were  able  to  count  and  identify  their  dead.  The  Bulgarians  believe 
that  about  250  of  their  countrymen,  wounded  soldiers,  military  bakers,  and 
peasant  fugitives,  were  slaughtered  there.  It  may  be  so,  but  the  total  is  conjec- 
tural, and  no  list  can  possibly  be  furnished.  The  Greeks,  on  the  other  hand,  have 
compiled  a  list  of  seventy-one  inhabitants  of  Demir-Hissar  who  were  killed  by  the 
Bulgarians.  We  do  not  question  the  accuracy  of  this  list.  But  there  is  no  means 
of  ascertaining  how  many  of  these  dead  Greeks  were  killed  during  the  fighting 
in  the  streets;  how  many  were  taken  with  arms  in  their  hands  and  shot;  and 
how  many  were  summarily  executed  on  suspicion  of  being  the  instigators  of  the 
rising.  Two  women  and  two  babies  are  among  the  dead.  If  they  were  killed 
in  cold  blood  an  "atrocity"  was  perpetrated,  but  during  a  confused  day  of  street 
fighting  they  may  possibly  have  been  killed  by  accident. 

The  case  of  the  Bishop  has  naturally  attracted  attention.  Of  the  four  Greek 
Bishops  who  were  said  to  have  been  killed  in  Macedonia,  he  alone  was  in  fact 
killed.  There  is  nothing  improbable  in  the  Bulgarian  statement  that  he  was  the 
leader  of  the  Greek  insurgents,  nor  even  in  the  further  allegation  that  he  fired 
the  first  shot.  The  Bishops  of  Macedonia,  whether  Greeks  or  Bulgarians,  are 
always  the  recognized  political  heads  of  their  community ;  they  are  often  in  close 
touch  with  the  rebel  bands,  and  a  young  and  energetic  man  will  sometimes  place 
himself  openly  at  their  head.  The  Bulgarians  allege  that  the  Bishop,  a  man  of 
forty  years  of  age,  fired  from  his  window  at  their  troops.  The  Greeks  admit  that 
he  "resisted"  arrest.  If  it  is  true  that  he  was  found  with  a  revolver,  from  which 
some  cartridges  had  been  fired,  there  was  technical  justification  for  regarding 
him  as  a  combatant.  The  hard  law  of  war  sanctions  the  execution  of  civilians 
taken  with  arms  in  their  hands.  There  is  no  reason  to  reject  the  Greek  state- 
ment that  his  body  was  mutilated,  dead  or  alive.  But  the  Greek  assertion  that 
this  was  done  by  a  certain  Captain  Bostanov  is  adequately  met  by  the  Bulgarian 
denial  that  any  such  officer  exists. 

Some  of  the  men  in  the  Greek  list  of  dead  were  presumably  armed  inhab- 
itants who  engaged  in  the  street  fighting.  Nine  are  young  men  of  twenty  and 
thereabouts  and  some  are  manual  laborers.  Clearly  these  are  not  "notables" 
collected  for  a  deliberate  massacre.  On  the  other  hand,  six  are  men  of  sixty  years 
and  upwards,  who  are  not  likely  to  have  been  combatants.  These  leaders  of  the 
Greek  community  were  evidently  arrested  on  suspicion  of  fomenting  the  out- 


94  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

break  and  summarily  "executed."  It  was  a  lawless  proceeding  without  form  of 
trial,  and  the  killing  was  evidently  done  in  the  most  brutal  way.  We  are  far 
from  feeling  any  certainty  regarding  the  course  of  events  at  Demir-Hissar. 
There  was  clearly  not  an  unprovoked  massacre  as  the  Greeks  allege.  But  there 
did  follow  on  the  cowardly  excesses  of  the  Greek  inhabitants  against  the  Bul- 
garian wounded  and  fugitives,  indefensible  acts  of  reprisal,  and  a  lawless  and 
brutal  slaughter  of  men  who  may  have  deserved  some  more  regular  punishment. 

The  events  at  Doxato  and  Demir-Hissar,  with  the  burning  of  Serres,  form 
the  chief  counts  in  the  Greek  indictment  of  the  Bulgarians.  The  other  items 
refer  mainly  to  single  acts  of  violence  charged  against  individuals  in  many  places 
over  a  great  range  of  territory.  These  minor  charges  we  have  not  investigated, 
since  they  rarely  involved  an  accusation  against  the  army  as  a  whole  or  its  su- 
perior officers.  We  regret  that  we  were  unable  to  visit  Nigrita,  a  large  village, 
which  was  burned  during  the  fighting  which  raged  around  it.  Many  of  the 
inhabitants  are  said  to  have  perished  in  the  flames.  We  think  it  proper  to  place 
on  record,  without  any  expression  of  opinion,  the  Greek  belief  that  this  place 
was  deliberately  burned  by  the  Bulgarians.  We  note  also  the  statement  made 
by  a  Greek  soldier  in  a  captured  letter  (see  Appendix  C,  No.  51)  that  more  than 
a  thousand  Bulgarian  prisoners  were  slaughtered  there  by  the  Greek  army. 
We  have  also  before  us  the  signed  statement  of  a  leading  Moslem  of  the  Nigrita 
district  to  the  effect  that  after  the  second  war  the  Greeks  drove  the  Moslems 
from  the  surrounding  villages  with  gross  violence,  because  they  had  been  neu- 
tral in  the  conflict,  and  took  possession  of  their  lands  and  houses. 

It  remains  to  mention  the  charge  repeatedly  made  by  some  of  the  diplomatic 
representatives  of  Greece  in  European  capitals,  that  the  fingers  and  ears  of 
women  were  found  in  the  pockets  of  captured  Bulgarian  soldiers.  We  need 
hardly  insist  on  the  inherent  improbability  of  this  vague  story.  Such  relics 
would  soon  become  a  nauseous  possession,  and  a  soldier  about  to  surrender 
would,  one  supposes,  endeavor  to  throw  away  such  damning  evidence  of  his 
guilt.  The  only  authority  quoted  for  this  accusation  is  a  correspondent  of  the 
Times.  We  saw  the  gentleman  in  question  at  Salonica,  a  Greek  journalist,  who 
was  acting  as  deputy  for  the  Times  correspondent.  He  had  the  story  from 
Greek  soldiers,  and  did  not  himself  see  the  fingers  and  ears.  The  headquarters 
of  the  Greek  army,  which  lost  no  opportunity  of  publishing  facts  likely  to  dam- 
age the  Bulgarians,  would  presumably  have  published  this  accusation  also,  with 
the  necessary  details,  had  it  been  capable  of  verification.  Until  it  is  backed 
by  further  evidence,  the  story  is  unworthy  of  belief. 

The  case  against  the  Bulgarians  which  remains  after  a  critical  examination 
of  the  evidence  relating  to  Doxato,  Serres,  and  Demir-Hissar  is  sufficiently 
grave.  In  each  case  the  Bulgarians  acted  under  provocation,  and  in  each  case 
the  accusation  is  grossly  exaggerated,  but  their  reprisals  were  none  the  less 
lawless  and  unmeasured.  It  is  fair,  however,  to  point  out  that  these  three  cases. 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION  95 

even  on  the  worst  view  which  may  be  taken  of  them,  are  far  from  supporting  the 
general  statements  of  some  Greek  writers,  that  the  Bulgarians  in  their  withdrawal 
from  southern  Macedonia  and  western  Thrace,  followed  a  general  policy  of 
devastation  and  massacre.  They  held  five  considerable  Graeco- Turkish  towns 
in  this  area  and  many  smaller  places — Drama,  Kavala,  Xanthi,  Gumurjina,  and 
Dedeagatch.  In  none  of  these  did  the  Bulgarians  burn  and  massacre,  though 
some  acts  of  violence  occurred.  The  wrong  they  did  leaves  a  sinister  blot  upon 
their  record,  but  it  must  be  viewed  in  its  just  proportions. 

3.    THE  BULGARIAN  PEASANT  AND  THE  GREEK  ARMY 

It  required  no  artificial  incitement  to  produce  the  race  hatred  which  explains 
the  excesses  of  the  Christian  Allies,  and  more  especially  of  the  Bulgarians 
toward  the  Turks.  Race,  language,  history,  and  religion  have  made  a  barrier 
which  only  the  more  tolerant  minds  of  either  creed  are  able  wholly  to  surmount. 
It  is  less  easy  to  explain  the  excesses  of  which  Greeks  and  Bulgarians  were 
guilty  toward  each  other.  The  two  races  are  sharply  distinguished  by  tem- 
perament. A  traditional  enmity  has  divided  them  from  the  dawn  of  history, 
and  this  is  aggravated  in  Macedonia  by  a  certain  social  cleavage.  But  for  a 
year  the  two  races  had  been  allies,  united  against  a  common  enemy.  When 
policy  dictated  a  breach,  it  was  necessary  to  prepare  public  opinion;  and  the 
Greek  press,  as  if  by  a  common  impulse,  devoted  itself  to  this  work.  To 
the  rank  and  file  of  all  three  Balkan  armies,  the  idea  of  a  fratricidal  war 
was  at  first  repugnant  and  inexplicable.  The  passions  of  the  Greek  army 
were  roused  by  a  daily  diet  of  violent  articles.  The  Greek  press  had  had 
little  to  say  regarding  the  Bulgarian  excesses  against  the  Turks  while  the  facts 
were  still  fresh,  and  indeed  none  of  the  allies  had  the  right  to  be  censorious,  for 
none  of  their  records  were  clean.  Now  everything  was  dragged  into  the  light, 
and  the  record  of  the  Bulgarian  bands,  deplorable  in  itself,  lost  nothing  in  the 
telling.  Day  after  day  the  Bulgarians  were  represented  as  a  race  of  monsters, 
and  public  feeling  was  roused  to  a  pitch  of  chauvinism  which  made  it  inevitable 
that  war,  when  it  came,  should  be  ruthless.  In  talk  and  in  print  one  phrase 
summed  up  the  general  feeling  of  the  Greeks  toward  the  Bulgarians,  "Dhen 
einai  anthropoi!"  (They  are  nof  human  beings).  In  their  excitement  and  in- 
dignation the  Greeks  came  to  think  of  themselves  as  the  appointed  avengers  of 
civilization  against  a  race  which  stood  outside  the  pale  of  humanity. 

When  an  excitable  southern  race,  which  has  been  schooled  in  Balkan  con- 
ceptions of  vengeance,  begins  to  reason  in  this  way,  it  is  easy  to  predict  the  con- 
sequences. Deny  that  your  enemies  are  men,  and  presently  you  will  treat  them 
as  vermin.  Only  half  realizing  the  full  meaning  of  what  he  said,  a  Greek  officer 
remarked  to  the  writer,  "When  you  have  to  deal  with  barbarians,  you  must  be- 
have like  a  barbarian  yourself.  It  is  the  only  thing  they  understand."  The 
Greek  army  went  into  the  war,  its  mind  inflamed  with  anger  and  contempt.  A 


96 


REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 


FIG.  12. — A  POPULAR  GREEK  POSTER 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT   POPULATION  97 

gaudily  colored  print,  which  we  saw  in  the  streets  of  Salonica  and  the  Pireaus, 
eagerly  bought  by  the  Greek  soldiers  returning  to  their  homes,  reveals  the  depth 
of  the  brutality  to  which  this  race  hatred  had  sunk  them.  It  shows  a  Greek 
evzonc  (highlander)  holding  a  living  Bulgarian  soldier  with  both  hands,  while 
he  gnaws  the  face  of  his  victim  with  his  teeth,  like  some  beast  of  prey.  It  is  enti- 
tled the  Bulgarophagos  (Bulgar-eater),  and  is  adorned  with  the  following  verses: 

The  sea  of  fire  which  boils  in  my  breast 
And  calls  for  vengeance  with  the  savage  waves  of  my  soul, 
Will  be  quenched  when  the  monsters  of  Sofia  are  still, 
And  thy  life  blood  extinguishes  my  hate. 

Another  popular  battle  picture  shows  a  Greek  soldier  gouging  out  the  eyes  of 
a  living  Bulgarian.  A  third  shows  as  an  episode  of  a  battle  scene  the  exploit 
of  the  Bulgar-eater. 

As  an  evidence  of  the  feeling  which  animated  the  Greek  army  these  things 
have  their  importance.  They  mean,  in  plain  words,  that  Greek  soldiers  wished 
to  believe  that  they  and  their  comrades  perpetrated  bestial  cruelties.  A  print 
seller  who  issued  such  pictures  in  a  western  country  would  be  held  guilty  of  a 
gross  libel  on  its  army. 

The  excesses  of  the  Greek  army  began  on  July  4  with  the  first  conflict  at 
Kukush  (Kilkish).  A  few  days  later  the  excesses  of  the  Bulgarians  at  Doxato 
(July  13),  Serres  (July  11),  and  Demir-Hissar  (July  7)  were  known  and  still 
further  inflamed  the  anger  of  the  Greeks.  On  July  12  King  Constantine  an- 
nounced in  a  dispatch  which  reported  the  slaughter  at  Demir-Hissar  that  he 
"found  himself  obliged  with  profound  regret  to  proceed  to  reprisals."  A  com- 
parison of  dates  will  show  that  the  Greek  "reprisals"  had  begun  some  days  before 
the  Bulgarian  "provocation." 

It  was  with  the  defeat  of  the  little  Bulgarian  army  at  Kukush  (Kilkish)  after 
a  stubborn  three  days'  defense  against  a  superior  Greek  force,  that  the  Greek 
campaign  assumed  the  character  of  a  war  of  devastation.  The  Greek  army 
entered  the  town  of  Kukush  on  July  4.  We  do  not  propose  to  lay  stress  on  the 
evidence  of  Bulgarian  witnesses  regarding  certain  events  which  preceded  their 
entry.  Shells  fell  outside  the  town  among  groups  of  fugitive  peasants  from  the 
villages,  while  within  the  town  shells  fell  in  the  orphanage  and  hospital  con- 
ducted by  the  French  Catholic  sisters  under  the  protection  of  the  French  flag. 
(See  Appendix  C,  Nos.  30  and  31.)  It  is  possible  and  charitable  to  explain  such 
incidents  as  the  effect  of  an  unlucky  chance.  The  evidence  of  European  eye  wit- 
nesses confirms  the  statements  of  the  Bulgarian  refugees  on  one  crucial  point. 
These  shells  caused  no  general  conflagration,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  more  than 
three  or  four  houses  were  set  on  fire  by  them.  When  the  Greek  army  entered 
Kukush  it  was  still  intact.  It  is  today  a  heap  of  ruins — as  a  member  of  the 
Commission  reports,  after  a  visit  to  which  the  Greek  authorities  opposed  several 


98 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 


FIG.  13. — A  POPULAR  GREEK  POSTER 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION  99 

obstacles.  It  was  a  prosperous  town  of  13,000  inhabitants,  the  center  of  a  purely 
Bulgarian  district  and  the  seat  of  several  flourishing  schools.  The  bent  stand- 
ards of  its  electric  lamps  still  testify  to  the  efforts  which  it  had  made  to  attain  a 
level  of  material  progress  unusual  in  Turkey.  That  its  destruction  was  deliber- 
ate admits  of  no  doubt.  The  great  majority  of  the  inhabitants  fled  before  the 
arrival  of  the  Greeks.  About  four  hundred,  chiefly  old  people  and  children,  had 
found  shelter  in  the  Catholic  orphanage,  and  were  not  molested.  European  eye 
witnesses  describe  the  systematic  entry  of  the  Greek  soldiers  into  house  after 
house.  Any  of  the  inhabitants  who  were  found  inside  were  first  evicted,  pillage 
followed,  and  then,  usually  after  a  slight  explosion,  the  house  burst  into  flames. 
Fugitives  continued  to  arrive  in  the  orphanage  while  the  town  was  burning,  and 
several  women  stated  that  they  had  been  violated  by  Greek  soldiers.  In  one 
case  a  soldier,  more  chivalrous  than  his  comrades,  brought  a  woman  to  the  or- 
phanage whom  he  had  saved  from  violation.  Some  civilians  were  killed  by  the 
Greek  cavalry  as  they  rode  in,  and  many  lives  were  lost  in  the  course  of  the 
sacking  and  burning  of  Kukush.  We  have  received  a  detailed  list  from  a  Bul- 
garian source  of  seventy-four  inhabitants  who  are  believed  to  have  been  killed. 
Most  of  them  are  old  women,  and  eleven  are  babies. 

The  main  fact  on  which  we  must  insist  is  that  the  Greek  army  inaugurated 
the  second  war  by  the  deliberate  burning  of  a  Bulgarian  town.  A  singular  fact 
which  has  some  bearing  on  Greek  policy  is  that  the  refugees  who  took  shelter 
in  the  French  orphanage  were  still,  on  September  6,  long  after  the  conclusion  of 
peace,  closely  confined  as  prisoners  within  it,  though  hardly  a  man  among  them 
is  capable  of  bearing  arms.  A  notice  in  Greek  on  its  outer  door  states  that  they 
are  forbidden  to  leave  its  precincts.  Meanwhile,  Greek  (or  rather  "Grecoman") 
refugees  from  Strumnitsa  were  being  installed  on  the  sites  of  the  houses  which 
once  belonged  to  Bulgarians,  and  in  the  few  buildings  (perhaps  a  dozen  in  num- 
ber) which  escaped  the  flames.  The  inference  is  irresistible.  In  conquering  the 
Kukush  district,  the  Greeks  were  resolved  to  have  no  Bulgarian  subjects. 

The  precedent  of  Kukush  was  only  too  faithfully  followed  in  the  villages. 
In  the  Caza  (county)  of  Kukush  alone  no  less  than  forty  Bulgarian  villages  were 
burned  by  the  Greek  army  in  its  northward  march.  (See  Appendix  C,  No.  52.) 
Detachments  of  cavalry  went  from  village  to  village,  and  the  work  of  the  regulars 
was  completed  by  bashi-bazouks.  It  was  a  part  of  the  Greek  plan  of  campaign 
to  use  the  local  Turkish  population  as  an  instrument  in  the  work  of  devastation. 
In  some  cases  they  were  armed  and  even  provided  with  uniforms.  (See  Appen- 
dix C,  No.  43.)  In  no  instance,  however,  of  which  we  have  a  record  were  the 
Turks  solely  responsible  for  the  burning  of  a  village.  They  followed  the  Greek 
troops  and  acted  under  their  protection.  We  have  no  means  of  ascertaining 
whether  any  general  order  was  given  which  regulated  the  burning  of  the  Bulga- 
rian villages.  A  Greek  sergeant  among  the  prisoners  of  war  in  Sofia,  stated  in 
reply  to  a  question  which  a  member  of  the  Commission  put  to  him,  that  he  and 
his  comrades  burned  the  villages  around  Kukush  because  the  inhabitants  had  fled. 


100  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 

It  is  a  fact  that  one  mainly  Catholic  village  (Todoraki)  in  which  most  of  the 
inhabitants  remained,  was  not  burned,  though  it  was  thoroughly  pillaged.  (See 
Appendix  C,  No.  32.)  But  the  fate  of  other  villages,  notably  Akangeli,  in  which 
the  inhabitants  not  only  remained,  but  even  welcomed  the  Greek  troops,  disposes 
of  this  explanation.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  terms  of  the  orders  under 
which  the  Greek  troops  acted,  the  effect  was  that  the  Bulgarian  villages  were 
burned  with  few  exceptions. 

Refugees  have  described  how,  on  the  night  of  the  fall  of  Kukush,  the  whole 
sky  seemed  to  be  aflame.  It  was  a  signal  which  the  peasants  understood.  Few 
of  them  hesitated,  and  the  general  flight  began  which  ended  in  massing  the  Bul- 
garian population  of  the  districts  through  which  the  Greeks  marched  within  the 
former  frontiers  of  Bulgaria.  We  need  net  insist  on  the  hardships  of  the  flight. 
Old  and  young,  women  and  children,  walked  sometimes  for  two  consecutive  weeks 
by  devious  mountain  paths.  The  weak  fell  by  the  wayside  from  hunger  and 
exhaustion.  Families  were  divided,  and  among  the  hundred  thousand  refugees 
scattered  throughout  Bulgaria,  husbands  are  still  looking  for  wives,  and  parents 
for  children.  Sometimes  the  stream  of  refugees  crossed  the  path  of  the  contend- 
ing armies,  and  the  clatter  of  cavalry  behind  them  would  produce  a  panic,  and 
a  sauve  qui  pent  in  which  mothers  lost  their  children,  and  even  abandoned  one 
in  the  hope  of  saving  another.  (See  Appendix  C,  Nos.  33,  34,  35.)  They 
arrived  at  the  end  of  their  flight  with  the  knowledge  that  their  flocks  had  been 
siezed,  their  crops  abandoned,  and  their  homes  destroyed.  In  all  this  misery  and 
loss  there  is  more  than  the  normal  and  inevitable  wastage  of  war.  The  peasants 
abandoned  everything  and  fled,  because  they  would  not  trust  the  Greek  army 
with  their  lives.  It  remains  to  inquire  whether  this  was  an  unreasonable  fear. 

The  immense  majority  of  the  Macedonian  refugees  in  Bulgaria  were  never 
in  contact  with  the  Greek  army  and  know  nothing  of  it  at  first  hand.  They  heard 
rumors  of  excesses  in  other  villages ;  they  knew  that  other  villages  had  been 
burned:  they  fled  because  everyone  was  fleeing;  at  the  worst  they  can  say  that 
from  a  distance  they  saw  their  own  village  in  flames.  It  would  be  easy  to 
ascribe  their  fears  to  prejudice  or  panic,  were  it  not  for  the  testimony  of  the 
few  who  were  in  direct  touch  with  the  Greek  troops.  In  the  appendices  will  be 
found  a  number  of  depositions  which  the  Commission  took  from  refugees.  It 
was  impossible  to  doubt  that  these  peasants  were  telling  the  truth.  Most  of  them 
were  villagers,  simple,  uneducated,  and  stunned  by  their  sufferings,  and  quite  in- 
capable of  invention.  They  told  their  tales  with  a  dull,  literal  directness.  In 
two  of  the  more  striking  stories,  we  obtained  ample  corroboration  in  circum- 
stances which  admitted  of  no  collusion.  Thus  a  refugee  from  Akangeli,  who  had 
fled  to  Salonica,  told  us  there  a  story  of  butchery  and  outrage  (see  Appendix  C, 
No.  39)  which  tallied  in  almost  every  detail  with  the  story  afterwards  told  by 
another  fugitive  from  the  same  village  who  had  fled  to  Sofia  (Appendix  C, 
No.  41).  While  passing  through  Dubnitsa  we  inquired  from  a  group  of  refugees 


THE   WAR   AND    THE    NOXCOMBATANT    POPULATION  101 

whether  any  one  present  came  from  Akangeli.  A  youth  stepped  forward,  who 
once  more  told  a  story  which  agreed  with  the  two  others  (Appendix  C,  No.  42). 
The  story  of  the  boy  Mito  Kolev  (Appendix  C,  No.  36)  told  in  Sofia,  was 
similarly  corroborated  in  an  equally  accidental  way  by  two  witnesses  at  Samakov 
(Appendix  C,  Nos.  37  and  38),  who  stepped  out  of  a  crowd  of  refugees  in 
response  to  our  inquiry  whether  anyone  present  came  from  the  village  in 
question  (Gavaliantsi).  We  can  feel  no  doubt  about  the  truth  of  a  story  which 
reached  us  in  this  way  from  wholly  independent  eye  witnesses.  These  two  inci- 
dents are  typical,  and  must  be  briefly  summarized  here. 

Mito  Kolev  is  an  intelligent  boy  of  fourteen,  who  comes  from  the  Bulgarian 
village  Gavaliantsi,  in  the  Kukush  district.  He  fled  with  most  of  his  neighbors 
in  the  first  alarm  after  the  Bulgarian  defeat  at  Kukush,  but  returned  next  day 
to  fetch  his  mother,  who  had  remained  behind.  Outside  the  village  a  Greek 
trooper  fired  at  him  but  missed  him.  The  lad  had  the  wit  to  feign  death.  As 
he  lay  on  the  ground,  his  mother  was  shot  and  killed  by  the  same  cavalryman. 
He  saw  another  lad  killed,  and  the  same  trooper  then  went  in  pursuit  of  a  crippled 
girl.  Of  her  fate  Mito,  who  clearly  distinguished  between  what  he  saw  and 
what  he  suspected,  knew  nothing,  but  another  witness  (Lazar  Tomov)  chanced 
to  see  the  corpse  of  this  girl  (Appendix  B,  No.  25).  Mito's  subsequent  adven- 
tures were  told  very  clearly  and  in  great  detail.  The  essential  points  are  (1)  that 
he  saw  his  village  burned,  and  (2)  that  another  Greek  cavalryman  whom  he  met 
later  in  the  day  all  but  killed  him  with  a  revolver  shot  and  a  saber  cut  at  close 
quarters,  while  he  spared  a  by-stander  who  was  able  by  his  command  of  the  lan- 
guage to  pass  himself  off  as  a  Greek.  The  material  corroboration  of  this  story  is, 
that  Mito  still  bore  the  marks  of  his  wounds.  A  shot  wound  may  be  accidental, 
but  a  saber  wound  can  only  be  given  deliberately  and  at  close  quarters.  A  trooper 
who  wounds  a  boy  with  his  sword  can  not  plead  error.  He  must  have  been  en- 
gaged in  indiscriminate  butchery.  Of  this  particular  squad  of  Greek  cavalry,  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  they  were  slaughtering  Bulgarian  peasants  at  sight,  and 
that  they  spared  neither  women  nor  children. 

The  evidence  regarding  Akangeli  (Appendix  C,  Nos.  39-42,  and  Appendix 
D,  No.  63,  paragraph  b)  points  to  the  same  conclusion.  In  this  Bulgarian 
village  near  the  Lake  of  Doiran,  refugees  from  many  of  the  neighboring 
villages,  who  are  said  to  have  numbered  4,000  persons,  had  halted  in  their 
flight.  A  squadron  of  Greek  cavalry,  numbering  about  300  men,  with  officers 
at  its  head,  arrived  between  3  and  4  p.m.  on  Sunday,  July  6.  The  villagers 
with  their  priest  went  out  to  meet  them  with  a  white  flag  and  the  Greek 
colors.  The  officer,  in  conversation  with  the  mayor,  accepted  their  surrender 
and  ordered  them  to  give  up  any  arms  they  possessed.  The  peasants  brought 
bread  and  cheese,  and  thirty  sheep  were  requisitioned  and  roasted  for  the 
troops.  Some  sixty  of  the  men  of  the  place  were  separated  from  the  others 
and  sent  away  to  a  wood.  Of  their  fate  nothing  is  known.  The  villagers  be- 


102  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

lieve  that  they  were  slaughtered,  but  we  have  reason  to  hope  that  they  may  have 
been  sent  as  prisoners  to  Salonica.  While  the  rifles  were  being  collected  the 
troopers  began  to  demand  money  from  both  men  and  women.  The  women  were 
searched  with  every  circumstance  of  indignity  and  indecency.  One  witness,  a 
well  to  do  inhabitant  of  Kukush,  was  bound  together  with  a  refugee  whose  name 
he  did  not  know.  He  gave  up  his  watch  and  five  piastres  and  his  life  was  spared. 
His  companion,  who  had  no  money,  was  killed  at  his  side.  While  the  arms  were 
being  collected,  one  which  was  loaded  went  off  accidentally  and  wounded  an 
officer,  who  was  engaged  in  breaking  the  rifles.  Two  youths  who  were  standing 
near  were  then  killed  by  the  soldiers,  presumably  to  avenge  the  officer's  mishap. 
Toward  evening  the  soldiers  forced  their  way  into  the  houses  and  began  to  vio- 
late the  women. 

Another  witness,  the  butcher  who  roasted  the  sheep  for  the  troops,  saw  two 
young  women,  whom  he  named,  violated  by  three  soldiers  beside  his  oven.  In- 
fantry arrived  on  Monday,  and  shortly  afterwards  the  village  was  set  on  fire. 
During  Sunday  night  and  on  Monday  morning  many  of  the  villagers  were 
slaughtered.  It  is  impossible  to  form  an  estimate  of  the  number,  for  our  wit- 
nesses were  in  hiding  and  each  saw  only  a  small  part  of  what  occurred.  One  of 
them  estimated  the  number  at  fifty,  but  this  was  clearly  only  a  guess.  We  have 
before  us  a  list  from  a  Bulgarian  source  of  356  persons  from  seven  villages  who 
have  disappeared  and  are  believed  to  have  been  killed  at  Akangeli.  Turks  from 
neighboring  villages  joined  in  the  pillage  under  the  eyes  of  the  Greek  soldiers 
and  their  officers.  The  facts  which  emerge  clearly  from  our  depositions  are  (1) 
that  the  village  submitted  from  the  first;  (2)  that  it  was  sacked  and  burned; 
(3)  that  the  Greek  troops  gave  themselves  up  openly  and  generally  to  a  debauch 
of  lust ;  (4)  that  many  of  the  peasants  were  killed  wantonly  and  without  provo- 
cation. 

.  It  would  serve  no  purpose  to  encumber  this  account  of  the  Greek  march 
with  further  narratives.  Many  further  depositions  will  be  found  in  the  appen- 
dices. They  all  convey  the  same  impression.  Wherever  the  peasants  ventured 
to  await  the  arrival  of  the  Greek  troops  in  their  villages,  they  had  the  same  ex- 
perience. The  village  was  sacked  and  the  women  were  violated  before  it  was 
burned,  and  noncombatants  were  wantonly  butchered,  sometimes  in  twos  or 
threes,  sometimes  in  larger  numbers.  We  would  call  attention  particularly  to 
two  of  these  narratives — that  of  Anastasia  Pavlova,  an  elderly  women  of  the 
middle  class,  who  told  her  painful  and  dramatic  story  with  more  intelligence 
and  feeling  than  most  of  the  peasant  witnesses.  (Appendix  C,  No.  43.)  Like 
them,  she  suffered  violation ;  she  was  robbed,  and  beaten,  and  witnessed  the  dis- 
honor of  other  women  and  the  slaughter  of  noncombatant  men.  Her  evidence 
relates  in  part  to  the  taking  of  the  town  of  Ghevgheli.  Ghevgheli,  which  is  a  mixed 
town,  was  not  burned,  but  a  reliable  European,  well  acquainted  with  the  town, 
and  known  to  one  member  of  the  Commission  as  a  man  of  honor  and  ability, 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION  103 

stated  that  fully  two  hundred  Bulgarian  civilians  were  killed  there  on  the  entry 
of  the  Greek  army. 

Another  deposition  to  which  we  would  particularly  call  attention  is  that  of 
Athanas  Ivanov,  who  was  an  eye  witness  of  the  violation  of  six  women  and  the 
murder  of  nine  men  in  the  village  of  Kirtchevo.  (Appendix  C,  No.  44.)  His 
story  is  interesting  because  he  states  that  one  Greek  soldier  who  protested  against 
the  brutality  of  his  comrades  was  overruled  by  his  sergeant,  and  further  that  the 
order  to  kill  the  men  was  given  by  officers.  It  is  probable  that  some  hundreds  of 
peasants  were  killed  at  Kirtchevo  and  German  in  a  deliberate  massacre,  carried 
out  with  gross  treachery  and  cruelty.  (See  also  Appendix  D,  Nos.  59-62.)  For 
these  depositions  the  Commission  assumes  responsibility,  in  the  sense  that  it  be- 
lieves that  the  witnesses  told  the  truth;  and,  further,  that  it  took  every  care  to 
ascertain  by  questioning  them  whether  any  obvious  excuse,  such  as  a  disorderly 
resistance  by  irregulars  in  the  neighborhood,  could  be  adduced.  These  depositions 
relate  to  the  conduct  of  the  Greek  troops  in  ten  villages.  We  should  hesitate  to 
generalize  from  this  basis  (save  as  to  the  fact  that  villages  were  almost  every- 
where burned),  but  we  are  able  to  add  in  the  appendix  a  summary  of  a  large 
number  of  depositions  taken  from  refugees  by  Professor  Miletits  of  Sofia  Uni- 
versity. (See  Appendix  D,  No.  63.)  While  it  can  not  assume  personal  respon- 
sibility for  this  evidence,  the  Commission  has  every  confidence  in  the  thorough- 
ness with  which  Professor  Miletits  performed  his  task. 

This  great  mass  of  evidence  goes  to  show  that  there  was  nothing  singular 
in  the  cases  which  the  Commission  itself  investigated.  In  one  instance  a  number 
of  Europeans  witnessed  the  brutal  conduct  of  a  detachment  of  Greek  regulars 
under  three  officers.  Fifteen  wounded  Bulgarian  soldiers  took  refuge  in  the 
Catholic  convent  of  Paliortsi,  near  Ghevgheli,  and  were  nursed  by  the  sisters. 
Father  Alloati  reported  this  fact  to  the  Greek  commandant,  whereupon  a  de- 
tachment was  sent  to  search  the  convent  for  a  certain  Bulgarian  voyevoda  (chief 
of  bands)  named  Arghyr,  who  was  not  there.  In  the  course  of  the  search  a 
Bulgarian  Catholic  priest,  Father  Treptche,  and  the  Armenian  doctor  of  the  con- 
vent were  severely  flogged  in  the  presence  of  the  Greek  officers.  A  Greek  soldier 
attempted  to  violate  a  nun,  and  during  the  search  a  sum  of  ;£T300  was  stolen. 
Five  Bulgarian  women  and  a  young  girl  were  put  to  the  torture,  and  a  large  num- 
ber of  peasants  carried  off  to  prison  for  no  good  reason.  The  officer  in  com- 
mand threatened  to  kill  Father  Alloati  on  the  spot  and  to  burn  down  the  con- 
vent. If  such  things  could  be  done  to  Europeans  in  a  building  under  the  pro- 
tection of  the  French  flag,  it  is  not  difficult  to  believe  that  Bulgarian  peasants 
fared  incomparably  worse. 

The  Commission  regrets  that  the  attitude  of  the  Greek  government  toward 
its  work  has  prevented  it  from  obtaining  any  official  answer  to  the  charges  which 
emerge  from  this  evidence.  The  broad  fact  that  the  whole  of  this  Bulgarian 
region,  for  a  distance  of  about  one  hundred  miles,  was  devastated  and  nearly 


104  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

every  village  burned,  admits  of  no  denial.  Nor  do  we  think  that  military  neces- 
sity could  be  pleaded  with  any  plausibility.  The  Greeks  were  numerically  greatly 
superior  to  their  enemy,  and  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  their  flanks  were  not  har- 
assed, nor  their  communications  threatened  by  guerrillas,  who  might  have  found 
shelter  in  the  villages.  The  Greeks  did  not  wait  for  any  provocation  of  this 
kind,  but  everywhere  burned  the  villages,  step  by  step  with  their  advance. 
The  slaughter  of  peasant  men  could  be  defended  only  if  they  had  been  taken 
in  the  act  of  resistance  with  arms  in  their  hands.  No  such  explanation  will 
fit  the  cases  on  which  we  have  particularly  laid  stress,  nor  have  any  of  the  war 
correspondents  who  followed  the  Greek  army  reported  conflicts  along  the  main 
line  of  the  Greek  march  with  armed  villagers.  The  violation  of  women  admits  of 
no  excuse;  it  can  only  be  denied. 

Denial  unfortunately  is  impossible.  No  verdict  which  could  be  based  on  the 
evidence  collected  by  the  Commission  could  be  more  severe  than  that  which  Greek 
soldiers  have  pronounced  upon  themselves.  It  happened  that  on  the  eve  of  the 
armistice  (July  27)  the  Bulgarians  captured  the  baggage  of  the  Nineteenth 
Greek  infantry  regiment  at  Dobrinichte  (Razlog).  It  included  its  post-bags,  to- 
gether with  the  file  of  its  telegraphic  orders,  and  some  of  its  accounts.  We 
were  permitted  to  examine  these  documents  at  our  leisure  in  the  Foreign  Office 
at  Sofia.  The  file  of  telegrams  and  accounts  presented  no  feature  of  interest. 
The  soldiers'  letters  were  written  often  in  pencil  on  scraps  of  paper  of  every  sort 
and  size.  Some  were  neatly  folded  without  envelopes.  Some  were  written  on 
souvenir  paper  commemorating  the  war,  and  others  on  official  sheets.  Most  of 
them  bore  the  regimental  postal  stamp.  Four  or  five  were  on  stamped  business 
paper  belonging  to  a  Turkish  firm  in  Serres,  which  some  Greek  soldier  had  pre- 
sumably taken  while  looting  the  shop.  The  greater  number  of  the  letters  were 
of  no  public  interest,  and  simply  informed  the  family  at  home  that  the  writer 
was  well,  and  that  his  friends  were  well  or  ill  or  wounded  as  the  case  might  be. 
Many  of  these  letters  still  await  examination.  We  studied  with  particular  care  a 
series  of  twenty-five  letters,  which  contained  definite  avowals  by  these  Greek 
soldiers  of  the  brutalities  which  they  had  practiced.  Two  members  of  the  Com- 
mission have  some  knowledge  of  modern  Greek.  We  satisfied  ourselves  (1) 
that  the  letters  (mostly  illiterate  and  ill  written)  had  been  carefully  deciphered 
and  honestly  translated;  (2)  that  the  interesting  portions  of  the  letters  were  in 
the  same  handwriting  as  the  addresses  on  the  envelopes  (which  bore  the  official 
stamp)  and  the  portions  which  related  only  personal  news;  (3)  that  no  tamper- 
ing with  the  manuscripts  had  been  practiced.  Some  minor  errors  and  inac- 
curacies are  interesting,  as  an  evidence  of  authenticity.  Another  letter  is  dated  by 
error  July  15  (old  style),  though  the  post-bags  were  captured  on  the  14th  (27th). 
We  noted,  moreover,  that  more  than  one  slip  (including  an  error  of  grammar) 
had  been  made  by  the  Bulgarian  secretary  in  transcribing  the  addresses  of  the 
letters  from  Greek  into  Latin  script — a  proof  that  he  did  not  know  enough 


THE    WAR   AND   THE    NONCOMBATANT    POPULATION  105 

Greek  to  invent  them.  But  it  is  unnecessary  to  dwell  on  these  minor  evidences  of 
authenticity.  The  letters  have  been  published  in  fac  simile.  The  addresses  and 
the  signatures  are  those  of  real  people.  If  they  had  been  wronged  by  some  in- 
credibly ingenious  forger,  the  Greek  government  would  long  ago  have  brought 
these  soldiers  before  some  impartial  tribunal  to  prove  by  specimens  of  their  genu- 
ine handwriting  that  they  did  not  write  these  letters.  The  Commission,  in  short, 
is  satisfied  that  the  letters  are  genuine. 

The  letters  require  no  commentary.  Some  of  the  writers  boast  of  the 
cruelties  practiced  by  the  Greek  army.  Others  deplore  them.  The  statements 
of  fact  (see  Appendix  C,  No.  51)  are  simple,  brutal,  and  direct,  and  always  to  the 
same  effect.  These  soldiers  all  state  that  they  everywhere  burned  the  Bulgarian 
villages.  Two  boast  of  the  massacre  of  prisoners  of  war.  One  remarks  that 
all  the  girls  they  met  with  were  violated.  Most  of  the  letters  dwell  on  the 
slaughter  of  noncombatants,  including  women  and  children.  These  few  ex- 
tracts, each  from  a  separate  letter,  may  suffice  to  convey  their  general  tenor : 

By  order  of  the  King  we  are  setting  fire  to  all  the  Bulgarian  villages, 
because  the  Bulgarians  burned  the  beautiful  town  of  Serres,  Nigrita,  and 
several  Greek  villages.  We  have  shown  ourselves  far  more  cruel  than  the 
Bulgarians.  *  *  * 

Here  we  are  burning  the  villages  and  killing  the  Bulgarians,  both 
women  and  children.  *  *  * 

We  took  only  a  few  [prisoners],  and  these  we  killed,  for  such  are  the 
orders  we  have  received. 

We  have  to  burn  the  villages — such  is  the  order — slaughter  the  young 
people  and  spare  only  the  old  people  and  the  children.  *  *  * 

What  is  done  to  the  Bulgarians  is  indescribable;  also  to  the  Bulgarian 
peasants.  It  was  a  butchery.  There  is  not  a  Bulgarian  town  or  village  but 
is  burned. 

We  massacre  all  the  Bulgarians  who  fall  into  our  hands  and  burn  the 
villages. 

Of  the  1,200  prisoners  we  took  at  Nigrita,  only  forty-one  remain  in 
the  prisons,  and  everywhere  we  have  been  we  have  not  left  a  single  root  of 
this  race. 

We  picked  out  their  eyes  [five  Bulgarian  prisoners]  while  they  were 
still  alive. 

The  Greek  army  sets  fire  to  all  the  villages  where  there  are  Bulgarians 
and  massacres  all  it  meets.  *  *  *  God  knows  where  this  will  end. 

These  letters  relieve  us  of  the  task  of  summing  up  the  evidence.  From 
Kukush  to  the  Bulgarian  frontier  the  Greek  army  devastated  the  villages,  vio- 
lated the  women,  and  slaughtered  the  noncombatant  men.  The  order  to  carry 
out  reprisals  was  evidently  obeyed.  We  repeat,  however,  that  these  reprisals 
began  before  the  Bulgarian  provocation.  A  list  of  Bulgarian  villages  burned  by 
the  Greek  army  which  will  be  found  in  Appendix  C  (No.  52)  conveys  some 
measure  of  this  ruthless  devastation.  At  Serres  the  Bulgarians  destroyed  4,000 


106  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

houses  in  the  conflagration  which  followed  the  fighting  in  the  streets.  The 
ruin  of  this  considerable  town  has  impressed  the  imagination  of  the  civilized 
world.  Systematically  and  in  cold  blood  the  Greeks  burned  one  hundred  and 
sixty  Bulgarian  villages  and  destroyed  at  least  16,000  Bulgarian  homes.  The 
figures  need  no  commentary. 

THE    FINAL    EXODUS 

No  account  of  the  sufferings  of  the  noncombatant  population  in  Macedo- 
nia would  be  complete  which  failed  to  describe  the  final  exodus  of  Moslems  and 
Greeks  from  the  territory  assigned  to  Bulgaria.  Vast  numbers  of  Moslems  ar- 
rived on  the  outskirts  of  Salonica  during  our  stay  there.  We  saw  them  camped 
to  the  number,  it  is  said,  of  8,000,  in  the  fields  and  by  the  roadside.  They  had 
come  with  their  bullock  carts,  and  whole  families  found  their  only  shelter  in 
these  primitive  vehicles.  They  had  left  their  villages  and  their  fields,  and  to  all 
of  them  the  future  was  a  blank.  They  did  not  wish  to  go  to  Asia,  nor  did  they 
wish  to  settle,  they  knew  not  how  nor  where,  in  Greek  territory.  They  regretted 
their  homes,  and  spoke  with  a  certain  passive  fatalism  of  the  events  which  had 
made  them  wanderers.  They  were,  when  we  visited  them,  without  rations,  but 
we  heard  that  the  Greek  authorities  afterwards  made  some  effort  to  supply  them 
with  bread. 

The  history  of  this  exodus  is  somewhat  complicated.  It  was  part  of  the 
Greek  case  to  assert  that  no  minority,  whether  Greek  or  Moslem,  can  safely  live 
under  Bulgarian  rule.  The  fact  is,  that  of  all  the  Balkan  countries,  Bulgaria  alone 
has  retained  a  large  proportion  of  the  original  Moslem  inhabitants.  Official 
Greek  statements  predicted,  before  peace  was  concluded,  that  the  Moslem  and 
Greek  minorities  would  emigrate  from  the  new  Bulgarian  territories  in  a  body. 
The  popular  press  went  further,  and  announced  that  with  their  own  hands  they 
would  burn  down  their  own  houses.  When  the  time  arrived,  steps  were  taken  to 
realize  these  prophecies,  more  particularly  at  Strumnitsa  and  in  the  neighboring 
villages. 

We  questioned  several  groups  of  these  Moslem  peasants  on  the  roadside  near 
Salonica.  (Appendix  A,  No.  4.)  We  took  the  deposition  of  a  leading  Tur- 
kish notable  of  Strumnitsa,  Hadji  Suleiman  Effendi.  (See  Appendix  A, 
No.  3.)  We  questioned  the  Greek  refugees  from  the  same  town  who  were 
at  Kukush.  We  obtained  Bulgarian  evidence  at  Sofia.  (See  Appen- 
dix D,  No.  65.)  Finally,  we  have  before  us  the  confidential  evidence 
of  an  authoritative  witness,  a  subject  of  a  neutral  power,  who  visited  the 
town  before  the  exodus  was  complete.  From  all  these  sources  we  heard  the 
same  story.  The  Greek  military  authorities  in  Strumnitsa  gave  the  explicit 
order  that  all  the  Moslem  and  Greek  inhabitants  of  the  town  and  villages  must 
abandon  their  homes  and  emigrate  to  Greek  territory.  The  order  was  backed  by 
the  warning  that  their  houses  would  be  burned.  Persuasion  was  used  and  was, 


THE  WAR  AND  THE  NONCOMBATANT  POPULATION  107 

in  the  case  of  the  Greeks,  partially  successful.  They  were  told  that  the  Bulga- 
rians would  massacre  them  if  they  remained.  They  were  also  assured  that  a 
new  Strumnitsa  would  be  built  for  them  at  Kukush  on  a  splendid  scale,  and 
they  were  promised  houses  and  lands.  Some  of  the  leaders  of  the  Greek  com- 
munity eagerly  embraced  this  policy  and  used  their  influence  to  enforce  it.  The 
Greek  exodus  was  far  from  being  spontaneous,  but  it  was  on  the  whole  volun- 
tary. Our  conviction  is  that  the  Moslems  yielded  to  force.  It  is  true  that  they 
had  had  a  terrible  experience  under  the  mixed  Serbo-Bulgarian  rule  in  the  early 
weeks  of  the  first  war.  But  this  they  had  survived,  and  most  of  them  stated 
that  Bulgarian  rule,  after  this  first  excess,  had  been  at  least  tolerable.  Most  of 
them  departed  in  obedience  to  the  order.  Some  vainly  attempted  to  bribe  the 
Greek  soldiers.  A  few  obstinately  remained  and  were  evicted  by  force.  The 
same  procedure  was  followed  in  the  villages. 

The  emigration  began  about  August  10.  On  the  evening  of  Wednesday, 
August  21,  parties  of  Greek  soldiers  began  to  burn  the  empty  houses  of  the 
Moslem  and  Greek  quarters  on  a  systematic  plan,  and  continued  their  work  on 
the  following  nights  up  to  August  23.  The  Greeks  evacuated  what  was  left 
of  the  town  on  August  27,  and  handed  it  over  to  the  Bulgarian  troops.  The 
Bulgarian  quarter  was  not  burned,  since  the  object  of  the  Greeks  was  to  circu- 
late the  legend  that  the  non-Bulgarian  inhabitants  had  themselves  burned  their 
own  houses.  To  estimate  the  full  significance  of  this  extraordinary  outrage, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  it  was  perpetrated  in  time  of  peace,  after  the  sig- 
nature of  the  Peace  of  Bucharest. 

A  similar  emigration  of  the  Greek  inhabitants  of  Melnik  also  took  place 
under  pressure.  Their  houses,  however,  were  not  burned,  and  there  are  indi- 
cations that  some  of  them  will  endeavor  to  return  when  the  pressure  is  relaxed. 

We  found  some  hundreds  of  the  Greek  fugitives  from  Strumnitsa  at  Ku- 
kush. They  are  not,  in  point  of  fact,  Greeks  at  all,  but  Slavs,  bi-lingual  for  the 
most  part,  who  belong  to  the  Greek  party  and  the  Patriarchist  Church.  One 
woman  had  a  husband  still  serving  in  the  Bulgarian  army ;  she  at  least  was  not  a 
voluntary  fugitive  from  Bulgarian  rule.  These  people  were  camped  amid  the  ruins 
of  Kukush,  some  in  the  few  houses  which  escaped  the  conflagration,  and  others 
in  improvised  shelters.  They  received  rations,  and  hoped  to  see  the  "New 
Strumnitsa"  arise  on  the  ashes  of  what  was  once  a  Bulgarian  town.  From  the 
windows  of  the  Catholic  orphanage  the  remnant  of  the  genuine  population  of 
Kukush,  closely  imprisoned,  watched  the  newcomers  establishing  themselves  on 
sites  which  were  once  their  own.  The  Greek  authorities  are  apparently  deter- 
mined to  dispose  of  the  lands  of  the  fugitive  Bulgarian  villagers  as  though  con- 
quest had  wiped  out  all  private  rights  of  property.  The  fugitives  from  Strum- 
nitsa are  simple  people.  One  man  spoke  rather  naively  of  his  first  horror  at 
the  idea  of  leaving  his  native  place.  Later,  he  said,  he  had  acquiesced;  he 
supposed  the  authorities  knew  best.  Another  fugitive,  a  village  priest,  regretted 


108  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

his  home,  which  had,  he  said,  the  best  water  in  all  Macedonia.  But  he  was 
sure  that  flight  was  wise.  He  had  reason  to  fear  the  Bulgarians.  A  comitadji, 
early  in  the  first  war,  pointed  a  rifle  at  his  breast,  and  said:  "Become  a  Bulga- 
rian, or  I'll  kill  you."  He  forthwith  became  a  Bulgarian  for  several  months  and 
conformed  to  the  exarchist  church.  These  "Greeks"  will  probably  be  well  cared 
for,  and  may  have  a  prosperous  future.  The  Moslem  fugitives  furnish  the  tragic 
element  of  this  enforced  exodus.  It  creates  three  problems:  What  will  become 
of  these  uprooted  Turkish  families?  Who  will  acquire  the  lands  they  have  left 
behind?  By  what  right  can  the  Greeks  dispose  of  the  Bulgarian  lands  in  the  Ku- 
kush  region?  The  problem  may  solve  itself  by  some  rough  exchange,  but  not 
without  endless  private  misery  and  immense  injustice. 


In  bringing  this  painful  chapter  to  a  conclusion,  we  desire  to  remind  the 
reader  that  it  presents  only  a  partial  and  abstract  picture  of  the  war.  It  brings 
together  in  a  continuous  perspective  the  sufferings  of  the  noncombatant  popula- 
tions of  Macedonia  and  Thrace  at  the  hands  of  armies  flushed  with  victory  or 
embittered  by  defeat.  To  base  upon  it  any  moral  judgment  would  be  to  show 
an  uncritical  and  unhistorical  spirit.  An  estimate  of  the  moral  qualities  of  the 
Balkan  peoples  under  the  strain  of  war  must  also  take  account  of  their  courage, 
endurance,  and  devotion.  If  a  heightened  national  sentiment  helps  to  explain 
these  excesses,  it  also  inspired  the  bravery  that  won  victory  and  the  steadiness 
that  sustained  defeat.  The  moralist  who  seeks  to  understand  the  brutality  to 
which  these  pages  bear  witness,  must  reflect  that  all  the  Balkan  races  have  grown 
up  amid  Turkish  models  of  warfare.  Folk-songs,  history  and  oral  tradition 
in  the  Balkans  uniformly  speak  of  war  as  a  process  which  includes  rape  and 
pillage,  devastation  and  massacre.  In  Macedonia  all  this  was  not  a  distant 
memory  but  a  recent  experience.  The  new  and  modern  feature  of  these  wars 
was  that  for  the  first  time  in  Balkan  annals  an  effort,  however  imperfect,  was 
made  by  some  of  the  combatants  and  by  some  of  the  civil  officials,  to  respect  an 
European  ideal  of  humanity.  The  only  moral  which  we  should  care  to  draw 
from  these  events  is  that  war  under  exceptional  conditions  produced  something 
worse  than  its  normal  results.  The  extreme  barbarity  of  some  episodes  was  a 
local  circumstance  which  has  its  root  in  Balkan  history.  But  the  main  fact  is 
that  war  suspended  the  restraints  of  civil  life,  inflamed  the  passions  that  slumber 
in  time  of  peace,  destroyed  the  natural  kindliness  between  neighbors,  and  set  in 
its  place  the  will  to  injure.  That  is  everywhere  the  essence  of  war. 


CHAPTER     III 

Bulgarians,  Turks  and  Servians 
1.  ADRIANOPLE 

The  Commission  was  afforded  a  perfectly  natural  opportunity  of  investi- 
gating the  atrocities  attributed  to  the  Bulgarians  after  they  had  taken  Adria- 
nople.  On  August  20,  1913,  the  Daily  Telegraph  published  a  very  solid  body 
of  material  sent  to  the  paper  by  Mr.  Ashmead  Bartlett,  and  printed  under  the 
suggestive  heading  "Terrible  Reports  by  a  Russian  Official."  On  August  26 
and  27,  this  same  report  appeared  in  Constantinople  in  the  official  organ  of  the 
Committee  of  Union  and  Progress,  Le  Jeune  Turc.  Since,  however,  the  latter 
contained  details  omitted  by  the  Daily  Telegraph,  the  information  published  in 
Le  Jeune  Turc  was  evidently  first  hand.  On  August  28  Le  Jeune  Turc  revealed 
the  source  of  its  information  as  the  result  of  an  unofficial  Russian  contradiction 
inserted  in  La  Turquic  of  August  27.  "We  are  authorized,"  declared  the  un- 
official organ  of  the  Russian  Embassy  at  Constantinople,  "to  give  a  categorical 
denial  of  the  information  of  the  Daily  Telegraph  reproduced  in  Le  Jeune  Turc, 
and  attributed  to  a  Russian  official.  No  Russian  official  has  been  commissioned 
to  make  inquiries  in  Thrace  and  at  Adrianople,  or  to  obtain  any  kind  of  in- 
formation :  none  is  therefore  in  a  position  to  supply  such  a  report.  Nor  have  the 
Russian  consuls  recorded  the  facts  mentioned  in  the  Telegraph."  Replying  to 
this  denial,  which  certainly  emanated  from  the  Russian  Embassy,  Le  Jeune  Turc 
stated  that  "the  document  in  question  was  not  the  work  of  a  Russian  official 
in  active  service,  but  of  an  ex-official,  the  Consul-General  Machkov,  who  was 
in  fact  the  correspondent  of  the  Noroie  Vremya."  It  should  be  added  that  Mr. 
Machkov's  telegraphic  "report"  was  rejected  by  his  paper,  and  that,  according 
to  the  statement  of  Mr.  Machkov's  colleagues  of  the  Constantinople  press,  the 
expense  of  his  telegram  amounting  to  £T150,  was  repaid  him  by  the  Com- 
mittee. Le  Jeune  Turc  itself  said:  "Fearing,  no  doubt,  lest  the  paper  (the 
Novoie  Vremya}  being  excessively  Bulgarophil1  might  not  publish  the  results 
of  his  eight  days'  inquiry  in  Adrianople,  Mr.  Machkov  sent  copies  of  it  to  the 
President  of  the  Council  of  Ministers  and  the  Foreign  Minister." 

The  veracity  of  the  document,  which  made  a  profound  impression  in 
Europe,  is  naturally  in  no  way  prejudiced  by  its  origin  and  history,  which  do 
however  assist  an  understanding  of  the  spirit  in  which  it  is  conceived.  One  of 
the  members  of  the  Balkan  Commission  came  to  Adrianople  to  follow  up  Mr. 
Machkov's  information.  He  succeeded  in  getting  in  touch  with  the  sources  from 


JThis  is  not  at  all  the  case. 


110  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

which  it  was  largely  derived,  and  had  repeated  to  him  verbally  practically  the 
whole  of  the  facts  and  sayings  contained  in  Mr.  Machkov's  account.  The  truth 
seems  to  be  that  while  Mr.  Machkov  invented  nothing  and  added  practically 
nothing  to  the  information  he  was  able  to  collect  in  Adrianople,  he  did  rely  upon 
distinctly  partisan  sources,  in  so  far  as  the  medium  through  which  his  informa- 
tion came  was  Greek.  The  member  of  the  Commission  was  at  pains  not  to  con- 
fine his  inquiry  to  this  medium.  In  addition  to  obtaining  from  the  persons 
responsible  for  the  administration  of  the  city  in  occupation,  a  long  series  of 
official  Bulgarian  depositions  (see  Appendix  G,  3),  he  succeeded  in  pushing  his 
inquiries  in  Adrianople  itself,  in  other  than  purely  Greek  areas,  and  in  utilizing 
the  depositions  of  Turkish  prisoners  at  Sofia,  collected  by  another  member  of 
the  Commission  (see  Appendix  G,  2).  Thus  without  any  intention  of  rehabili- 
tating the  Bulgarians,  he  succeeded  in  establishing  the  facts  in  a  more  impartial 
manner  than  could  be  done  by  Mr.  Machkov,  who  had  been  known  as  a  very  pro- 
nounced Bulgarphobe  since  his  tenure  of  the  Russian  consulate  at  Uskub,  fifteen 
years  previously. 

The  account  of  affairs  in  Adrianople  falls  into  three  sections:  first,  the 
capture  of  the  town  and  the  days  immediately  following, — March  26-30,  1913; 
secondly,  the  Bulgarian  administration  of  the  town  during  the  occupation,  and 
thirdly,  the  last  days  and  the  evacuation, — July  19-22,  1913. 

THE  CAPTURE  OF  THE  TOWN 

The  particular  charge  made  against  the  Bulgarians  during  this  short  period 
is  that  they  were  guilty  of  acts  of  cruelty  against  the  Turkish  prisoners  and  of 
pillaging  the  inhabitants  of  the  town.  Any  clear  establishment  of  their  respon- 
sibility depends  on  a  knowledge  of  the  situation  existing  prior  to  the  occupa- 
tion. To  throw  light  on  this  point  we  will  refer  to  a  document  entitled  Journal 
of  the  Siege  of  Adrianople,  published  in  Adrianople  itself  over  the  initials 
"P.  C,"  belonging  to  a  person  well  known  in  the  locality  and  worthy  of  every 
confidence.  So  early  as  January  31  (new  style),  P.  C.  remarks  that  "the  famine 
has  become  more  atrocious:  there  is  nothing  to  be  heard  in  some  of  the  poor 
quarters  of  the  town  but  the  cries  of  the  little  children  asking  for  bread  and 
the  wailing  of  the  mothers  who  have  none  to  give  them.  From  the  Hildyrym 
quarter  it  is  reported  that  a  man  has  committed  suicide  after  killing  his  wife 
and  three  children.  A  Turkish  woman,  a  widow,  is  said  to  have  cast  her  little 
ones  into  the  Toundja.  *  *  *"  And  so  on.  On  February  12,  P.  C.  speaks 
of  the  "famished  soldiers,"  forbidden  to  receive  alms,  and  who  "beg  you  to  cast 
your  money  on  the  ground,  whence  they  may  pick  it  up  an  instant  after."  On 
March  2,  revolt  broke  out  among  the  Hildyrym  populace  and  the  writer  fore- 
casts what  was  to  follow  in  these  words:  "A  day  of  vengeance  and  reprisals 
will  come  when  the  besiegers  enter."  The  soldiery  stole  bread  in  broad  day- 
light and  refused  to  give  it  up  when  taken  in  the  act.  P.  C.  describes,  two  days 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  111 

after,  how  "groups  of  people  pass  you  who  can  hardly  hold  each  other  up ;  most 
of  their  faces  are  emaciated,  their  skin  looks  earthy  and  corpse-like;  others  with 
swollen  limbs  and  puft'y  countenances  seem  hardly  able  to  stumble  along.  You 
see  them  chewing  at  lumps  of  snow  to  cheat  their  hunger."  And  nearly  two 
weeks  were  still  to  pass  before  the  surrender !  On  March  12  the  following  scene 
took  place :  "A  soldier  crossing  the  Maritza  bridge  suddenly  stopped,  beat  the  air 
two  or  three  times  with  his  hands'  and  fell  down  dead."  He  was  thought  to  be 
wounded  but  "it  was  only  starvation."  "Stretchers  bearing  dead  or  diseased 
persons  pass  in  constant  succession;  the  doctors  predict  an  appalling  mortality 
as  soon  as  the  mild  weather  comes."  On  March  19,  "In  the  hospitals  one  death 
follows  another;  yesterday  two  new  cases  of  cholera  were  reported."  *  *  * 
"This  morning  a  poor  trooper  was  brought  in,  poisoned  from  browsing  on  grass. 
Since  the  spring  the  cases  have  been  multiplied."  On  March  22,  "We  have  had 
five  deaths  last  night;  at  the  moment  the  mortality  is  from  50  to  60  a  day,  the 
result  not  of  any  epidemic,  but  of  pneumonia  affections  and  physiological  star- 
vation. Many  have  eaten  unwholesome  or  poisonous  bodies."  Finally,  there  is 
the  extract  referring  to  the  "last  day  of  Adrianople,"  i.  e.,  Wednesday,  March  26, 
the  day  on  which  the  town  fell.  It  runs  as  follows : 

The  streets  and  squares  are  gradually  filling  with  emaciated  and  ragged 
soldiers,  who  march  gloomily  to  the  rendezvous  or  sit  down  with  an  air  of 
resignation  at  the  corners  and  along  the  walls.  There  is  no  disorder  among 
them:  on  the  contrary  they  present  a  picture  of  utter  prostration  and 
sadness.  *  *  *  In  contrast  to  the  calm  dignity  of  the  Turks,  the  Greek 
mob  showed  an  ever  increasing  meanness.  They  did  not  yet  dare  to  insult 
their  disarmed  masters,  but  began  to  pillage  like  madmen,  to  an  accompani- 
ment of  yells,  blows  and  blasphemies.  The  Turks  let  them  carry  off  every- 
thing without  saying  a  word.1 

It  only  remains  now  to  place  the  picture  thus  given  in  juxtaposition  with 
Mr.  Machkov's  report  and  the  commentary  by  the  Bulgarian  authorities  on 
the  events  at  the  moment  of  the  entry  of  their  troops,  to  see  how  the  different 
accounts  complete  and  confirm  one  another. 

Take,  to  begin  with,  the  truly  awful  fate  of  the  prisoners  incarcerated  in 
the  island  of  Toundja,  Sarai  Eski.  A  member  of  the  Commission  visited  the 
island.  He  saw  how  the  bark  had  been  torn  off  the  trees,  as  high  as  a  man 
could  reach,  by  the  starving  prisoners.  He  even  met  on  the  spot  an  aged  Turk 
who  had  spent  a  week  there,  and  said  he  had  himself  eaten  the  bark.  A  little 
Turkish  boy  who  looked  after  the  cattle  on  the  island,  said  that  from  across 
the  river  he  had  seen  the  prisoners  eating  the  grass  and  made  a  gesture  to  show 
the  inquirer  how  they  did  it.  General  Vasov  stated  in  his  deposition  (see  Ap- 


lThese  somewhat  long  quotations  from  P.  C.'s  book  have  been  made  because  it  is  now 
a  bibliographical  rarity.  P.  C.'s  impressions  are  confirmed  by  another  Journal  of  the 
Siege  of  Adrianople,  by  Gustave  Cirilli  (Paris:  Chapelot.  1913),  see  pp.  129-151,  etc. 


112 


REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN   COMMISSION 


FIG.  14. — ISLE  OF  TOUNDJA 
TREES  STRIPPED  OF  BARK  WHICH  THE  PRISONERS  ATE 


pendix  G,  3)  that  he  gave  the  prisoners  permission  to  strip  the  bark  off  the  trees 
for  fuel,  a  fact  confirmed  by  other  trustworthy  witnesses.  The  same  general,  from 
the  second  day  on,  ordered  a  quarter  loaf  to  be  distributed"  to  the  prisoners, 
which  he  took  from  the  rations  of  the  Bulgarian  soldiery.  This  was  confirmed 
by  Major  Mitov,  who  was  entrusted  with  carrying  out  the  order,  which  is  more- 
over inscribed  in  the  War  Minister's  archives  (see  Appendix  G,  5).  On  the  first 
day  the  victorious  soldiery  shared  their  bread  with  the  prisoners  and  the  starv- 
ing populace.  But  touching  incidents  like  this  could  not,  any  more  than  the 
general's  order,  supply  the  mass  of  the  people  with  the  food  for  lack  of 
which  they  perished,  and  there  are  good  grounds  for  believing  that  these  poor 
wretches  went  on  consuming  the  "unwholesome  or  poisonous"  stuffs  of  which 
P.  C.  speaks.  The  mortality  among  the  prisoners  must  have  been  severe, 
especially  in  the  island,  where  cholera  broke  out  again  on  the  third  or  fourth 
day  of  the  siege.  There  is  evidence  of  a  want  of  tents,  which  was  indeed  true 
of  the  whole  army.  The  further  fact  that  these  unfortunate  creatures  passed 
the  night  exposed  to  all  the  rigors  of  rain  and  freezing  mud,  would  in  itself  ex- 
plain the  increasing  mortality.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  believe,  after  reading  the 
descriptions  published  in  the  European  press,  for  example  Barzini's  article  in 
the  Corriere  delle  Sera,  that  the  isolation  of  the  sick  really  had  the  good  effects 
alleged  by  General  Vasov. 

The  number  of  deaths  has  been  variously  estimated.  Major  Mitov  speaks 
of  thirty  after  the  first  morning.  Major  Choukri-bey,  a  captive  officer,  puts  the 
number  in  a  single  day  at  a  hundred;  General  Vasov  estimated  the  total  number 
of  deaths  at  100  or  200.  The  real  figures  must  be  higher.  The  Turk  interro- 
gated by  the  member  of  the  Commission  told  him  that  the  group  in  which  he 
was.  consisted  of  some  1,800  persons  confined  in  a  narrow  space  indicated  by 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  113 

a  gesture.  On  the  night  of  March  15,  187  of  them,  he  said,  died  of  cold  and 
hunger.  The  witnesses,  it  may  be  noted,  put  disease  second  or  third  among  the 
causes  of  death.  The  main  cause  was  still,  as  during  the  siege,  weakness  and 
exhaustion  resulting  from  starvation,  the  agonizing  effects  of  which  lasted  not 
only  during  the  five  days  of  the  final  struggle  of  which  Mr.  Vasov  speaks,  but 
for  months.  It  must  certainly  not  be  forgotten  that  the  explosion  of  the  bridge 
over  the  Arda,  and  the  destruction  of  the  Turkish  depots,  made  it  difficult  to  pro- 
vide food  for  55,000  prisoners  and  inhabitants.  But  when  all  these  admissions 
have  been  made,  there  remains  as  a  fact  not  to  be  denied,  the  cruel  indifference 
in  general  to  the  lot  of  the  prisoners.  This  fact  is  fully  confirmed  by  the  depo- 
sitions of  the  captive  Turkish  officers  at  Sofia.  One  is  therefore  bound  to  ad- 
mit that  the  conduct  of  the  victors  towards  their  captive  foes  left  much  to  be 
desired.  Some  of  the  rigorous  measures  reported  by  Turkish  officers  might  be 
given  as  a  reason  against  the  attempts  to  escape  made  by  certain  prisoners.  But 
that  can  not  explain  everything :  what  about  the  vanquished  who  were  bayoneted 
at  night  and  their  corpses  left  exposed  in  the  streets  till  noon?  The  case  re- 
ported by  Mr.  Machkov,  of  the  Turkish  captive  officer  who,  being  too  weak  to 
march,  was  slain  by  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  in  charge,  as  well  as  a  Jew  who  had 
tried  to  defend  him,  is  fully  confirmed  by  a  reserve  officer,  Hadji  Ali,  himself 
a  prisoner  at  Sofia.  Mr.  Machkov  gives  the  name  of  the  compassionate  Jew, 
Salomon  Behmi ;  and  at  Constantinople  the  very  words  uttered,  in  Turkish,  by 
this  Jew,  "Yazyk,  wourma"  ("It  is  a  sin:  do  not  kill,")  were  reported  to  the 
member  of  the  Commission.  Hadji  Ali  knew  the  name  of  the  slain  Turk, 
Captain  Ismail- Youzbachi,  and  saw  him  fall  with  his  own  eyes.  The  explana- 
tion given  by  General  Vasov  and  the  Baroness  Yxcoull  proves  that  the  death 
of  the  thirteen  Turks  slain  in  the  mosque  at  Miri-Miran  can  not  be  laid  at  the 
Bulgarians'  door;  but  the  depositions  of  the  Turkish  soldiers  concerning  the 
murder  of  the  sick  and  diseased  prisoners  on  the  Mustapha  Pasha  route  are  more 
than  probably  true.  We  shall  return  to  this  question  of  the  treatment  of  pris- 
oners in  the  chapter  dealing  with  international  law. 

A  Greek  version  of  the  pillage  of  Adrianople  reproduced  by  Mr.  Machkov 
is  unkind  to  a  degree  calculated  to  prejudice  public  opinion.  Apart  from  Mr. 
Machkov  and  Mr.  Pierre  Loti,  who  merely  repeats  the  Turkish  version  pre- 
vailing at  the  moment  without  verifying  it,  almost  all  the  authorities  agree  in 
recognizing  that  the  pillaging  during  the  days  that  followed  the  fall  of  the  town 
was  due  to  the  Greeks  themselves — to  some  extent  also  to  the  Jews  and  Arme- 
nians, but  mainly  to  the  Greeks, — who  simply  fell  upon  the  undefended  property 
of  the  Turks.  The  quotations  made  above  from  P.  C.'s  journal  foreshadow  this 
truth,  which  is  fully  corroborated  and  removed  from  the  region  of  doubt  by  the 
body  of  evidence  collected  by  the  Commission. 

Pillage  had  begun  in  Adrianople  before  the  Bulgarian  troops  entered  the 
town,  and  continued  until  the  occupation  and  the  installation  of  the  army  was  an 


114  REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 

accomplished  fact.  Innumerable  scenes  have  been  described  by  eye  witnesses. 
A  considerable  number. — which  could  be  indefinitely  increased, — will  be  found 
in  the  Appendix. 

Even  during  the  entry  by  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  the  streets  were  occupied 
by  the  indigenous  mob,  which  pillaged  all  the  Turkish  public  buildings,  beginning 
with  the  military  clubs,  and  attacked  private  houses,  beginning  with  the  va- 
cant abodes  of  the  Turkish  officers.  Patrols  were  hastily  sent  out,  who  lost 
themselves  in  the  labyrinth  of  streets,  and  the  people  were  instructed  to 
whistle  for  their  aid.  However,  the  mass  of  the  Turks  feared  reprisals  on  the 
part  of  the  Greeks.  The  patrols  wandered  hither  and  thither  punishing  a  few 
malefactors  to  the  cries  of  "Aferim"  (Bravo!)  from  the  Turks.  But  the  Turks 
themselves  told  Mr.  Mitov,  who  described  the  scenes  to  us,  "you  can  not  be  every- 
where at  once."  And  so  the  pillaging  went  on. 

An  official  (whose  name  we  are  not  permitted  to  disclose)  went  through  the 
streets  on  the  second  day  of  the  occupation.  Djouma-bey,  the  Secretary  of  the 
Vali,  pointed  out  crowds  of  men  and  women  on  every  side,  carrying  off  the 
goods  they  had  stolen.  Going  into  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  he  asked  for  a  patrol  and 
went  out  with  Major  Mitov.  Everywhere  the  same  sight  met  their  eyes.  A 
perpetual  stream  of  women,  making  off  with  their  plunder.  He  threatened  them 
with  his  stick.  Mr.  Mitov  pointed  his  revolver.  The  women  made  off,  dropping 
their  bundles ;  then,  as  the  authorities  passed  on  they  saw  the  same  women  coming 
back  and  picking  up  their  booty.  They  arrived  at  the  mosque,  where  the  popu- 
lace had  stored  its  household  goods.  Standing  at  the  door  the  Bulgarian  officer 
ordered  the  pillage  to  stop  and  the  pillagers  to  go  out  one  by  one.  As  they 
passed  out  they  were  hit  with  the  stick  and  the  butt  end  of  the  revolver.  The 
women,  however,  would  not  let  go;  in  spite  of  the  bastinado  to  which  they  were 
treated  they  stuck  to  their  thefts.  There  were  too  many  of  them,  both  men  and 
women,  to  be  taken  up  and  punished,  and  they  took  advantage  of  this  accident 
of  superior  strength. 

By  the  third  day  the  patrols  were  regularly  established;  order  began  to  be 
restored.  Nevertheless  pillage  and  robbery  went  on,  though  under  new  forms 
suited  to  the  new  conditions.  Sometimes  the  thieves  dressed  themselves  up  as 
soldiers  and  having  obtained  entrance  to  a  house  in  the  guise  of  a  patrol,  plun- 
dered at  their  ease.  It  was  at  this  point  that  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  in  their  turn 
began  to  follow  suit,  or  rather  to  cooperate  with  the  rest  in  a  new  kind  of 
division  of  labor.  There  is  evidence  to  show  that  the  patrols  worked  to  protect — 
the  thieves,  on  condition  that  they  might  share  in  their  booty.  Major  Mitov 
himself  admitted  that  the  soldiers  had,  to  his  knowledge,  often  been  induced  by 
their  Greek  hosts  to  take  part  in  pillage,  every  possible  means  of  persuasion 
being  tried  as  inducement. 

Here  again  the  authorities  have  simply  had  to  admit  their  powerlessness. 
The  member  of  the  Commission  responsible  for  the  inquiry  was  told  that  a 


BULGARIANS,   TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  115 

captive  soldier  "pomak"  (i.  e.,  a  Bulgarian  Mussulman),  well  known  in  one  of 
the  consulates,  was  given  a  written  permit  to  go  about  as  a  "free  prisoner" ;  but 
on  attempting  to  make  use  of  his  permit,  he  was  robbed  in  the  streets  by  the 
regulars,  who  stripped  him  of  everything  down  to  his  boots.  He  returned  to 
the  consulate  barefoot  and  a  complaint  was  sent  in  to  Commander  Grantcharov. 
All  he  could  do  however  was  to  renew  the  poor  devil's  permit  and  give  him  a 
medjide  (4^  francs)  out  of  his  own  pocket,  to  buy  shoes. 

Pillage  even  went  on  at  the  Bulgarian  consulate  in  Adrianople.  The  consul, 
Mr.  Kojoukharov,  on  returning  thither  from  Kirk  Kilisse,  whence  he  had  been 
transferred,  found  his  trunks  had  been  emptied.  Mr.  Chopov,  chief  of  police  in 
Adrianople,  told  us  that  he  was  unwilling  to  make  inquiry  into  Mr.  Kojoukharov's 
case,  because  he  was  a  Bulgarian.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Vasov  told  us  that  he 
refused  to  make  domiciliary  investigations,  "to  avoid  disturbing  the  people,"  and 
perhaps  also  to  avoid  creating  new  opportunities  for  pillage.  Such  investiga- 
tions were  made,  however, — and  Mr.  Vasov  mentioned  them  himself, — in  search 
of  soldiers  in  hiding  and  disguise. 

Moreover,  complaints  and  requests  for  inquiries  poured  in  from  the  pillaged 
people,  especially  from  the  Turks,  to  the  number  of  two  or  three  hundred  a  day, 
according  to  Mr.  Mitov.  Thereupon  domiciliary  investigations  were  instituted, 
with  excellent  results  in  many  cases.  A  quantity  of  goods  stolen  from  the  Turks 
were  discovered  in  the  houses  of  the  Greeks  and  handed  back  to  their  owners. 
The  chief  of  police  opened  a  depot  in  the  Hotel  de  Ville  for  goods  of  doubtful 
origin  and  unknown  ownership;  and  Mr.  Chopov  told  the  Commission  that  the 
stolen  goods  were  brought  in  by  the  cart  load.  Certificates  were  then  issued  by 
the  municipality  stating  that  ownership  of  the  goods  had  been  acquired  not  by 
theft  but  by  purchase.  Mr.  Mitov  explained  to  the  Commission  that  this  became 
an  ingenious  and  novel  method  of  claiming  ownership  of  certain  goods  which 
had  in  fact  been  bought,  but  at  a  very  low  price,  by  Jews  and  Greeks. 

Domiciliary  investigations  of  course  furnished  their  own  crop  of  abuses. 
Here  again,  however,  Greek  complaints  can  not  always  be  taken  as  expressing 
the  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,  as  is  suggested  by  one  case  cited  by  Mr. 
Machkov.  In  his  report  he  says:  "Soldiers,  armed  with  muskets,  carried  off 
a  quantity  of  jewelry  and  precious  antiques  from  two  Greeks,  the  brothers 
Alexandre  and  Jean  Thalassinos;  they  wrenched  rings  and  bracelets  from  the 
hands  of  their  sister." 

A  great  deal  has  been  said  about  the  pillage  of  the  carpets  and  library  of 
the  celebrated  mosque  of  Sultan  Selim.  The  evidence  collected  by  the  Com- 
mission enables  us  to  settle  this  point.  That  the  Bulgarian  authorities,  as  soon 
as  circumstances  permitted,  took  every  reasonable  precaution  for  safeguarding 
the  mosque  is  clear.  It  is  however  not  true,  nor  did  the  interested  parties  ever 
try  to  spread  the  belief,  that  the  mosque  was  not  pillaged  at  all.  In  the  first 
confusion  the  fine  building  served  as  a  place  of  refuge  and  was  filled  by  the 


116 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 


wretched  furniture  of  the  poor  Mussulman  families  who  sought  an  asylum  there. 
Mr.  Mitov  told  us  how  these  Mussulmen  took  their  domestic  utensils  and  their 
rags  with  them  when  they  left.  Mr.  Chopov  added  that  the  carpets  of  the 
mosque  were  not  injured  and  the  representative  of  the  military  governor  of 
Adrianople  who  was  attached  to  the  member  of  the  Commission  responsible  for 
the  inquiry  certainly  made  no  complaints  on  the  score  of  this  alleged  vandalism. 


r 


FIG.  15. — MOSQUE  OF  SULTAN  SELIM 
A  CUPOLA  OF  THE  DOME  RENT  BY  AN  EXPLOSIVE  SHELL 


The  case  of  the  library  is  different.  During  an  entire  day  it  was  at  the 
mercy  of  the  populace,  thanks  to  the  existence  of  a  private  entry  overlooked  by 
Mr.  Mitov  at  his  first  visit.  On  returning  to  the  mosque  in  the  course  of  the 
next  day  he  perceived  clear  traces  of  pillage.  Books  were  lying  on  the  floor; 
some  had  been  torn  from  their  bindings ;  everything  believed  to  have  been  of 
value  had  evidently  been  removed.  In  Adrianople  and  in  Sofia  it  is  said  that 
foreign  orientalists,  enlightened  connoisseurs,  were  happily  inspired  to  save  pre- 
cious manuscripts  and  rare  volumes  by  buying  them  at  their  own  expense.  If 
the  happy  possessors,  now  that  all  danger  of  destruction  is  over,  restore  its  prop- 
erty to  the  mosque,  this  action  will  have  been  admirable.  The  evidence  of 
Baroness  Yxcoull  shows  that  order  was  restored  in  the  mosque,  as  in  the  town 
of  Adrianople,  from  the  third  day  of  the  occupation. 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  117 

THE  BULGARIAN  ADMINISTRATION 

Let  us  now,  leaving  on  one  side  other  characteristic  incidents,  which  could 
be  multiplied  ad  infinituw,  consider  the  general  criticism  passed  on  the  Bulgarian 
administration,  during  the  four  months  of  the  occupation, — March  13/26  to  July 
9/22.  That  the  general  impression  on  the  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  Adrianople 
today  is  decidedly  unfavorable  to  the  subjects  of  King  Ferdinand  is  undeniable. 
Those  representing  Bulgarian  authority  have  thus  ample  opportunity  of  esti- 
mating at  their  true  value  the  official  expressions  of  gratitude  which  were  ex- 
tended to  them  on  behalf  of  the  heterogeneous  population  of  the  town.  The 
Turks  are  only  too  glad  to  pass  once  more  under  the  sway  of  their  national 
government.  Both  interest  and  patriotism  have  always  made  the  Greeks  hostile 
to  the  Bulgarians. 

The  testimony  of  foreigners  is  mixed.  Mr.  Klimenko,  head  of  the  Russian 
consulate  during  the  siege,  authorizes  us  to  state  in  his  name  that  up  to  his 
departure  from  Adrianople  on  April  7,  he  had  no  complaint  to  make  of  the 
Bulgarian  regime.  The  judgment  of  the  brothers  of  the  Assumption,  and  to 
some  extent  of  the  Armenians,  is  equally  favorable.  The  documents  annexed  to 
this  volume  contain  a  list,  supplied  by  the  authorities  themselves,  of  the  measures 
taken  by  the  Bulgarian  authorities  to  restore  order  and  satisfy  the  various  nation- 
alities concerned.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Gustave  Cirilli,  in  his  Diary  of  the 
Siege,  speaks  of  the  Bulgarian  administration  as  creating  "an  irresistible  tide  of 
distrust  or  aversion" ;  due,  according  to  him,  "not  so  much  to  vexatious  exactions 
which  alienated  the  sympathies  of  the  inhabitants,"  as  to  the  extravagant  nation- 
alism of  the  Bulgarians,  their  efforts  to  impose  their  religious  observances  and 
language.  At  the  same  time  Mr.  Cirilli  does  justice  to  the  administration  of 
the  last  commander,  Mr.  Yeltchev,  of  whom  Mr.  Machkov  speaks  so  ill,  describing 
his  system  as  "the  hand  of  iron  in  the  velvet  glove." 

The  Commission's  competence  was,  of  course,  limited  to  a  record  of  the 
externals  of  the  regime.  It  is  well  known  that  the  municipality  retained  its 
powers  under  the  Bulgarian  domination  and  that  a  'majority  on  the  council 
belonged  to  the  nationalities  (three  Bulgarians,  three  Greeks,  three  Turks,  two 
Jews,  one  Armenian).  The  Turks  were  better  disposed  than  the  other  nation- 
alities to  a  Bulgarian  administration  which  saved  them  from  pillage,  and  fre- 
quently passed  official  votes  of  approval  upon  it.  The  Greeks,  on  the  other 
hand,  did  not  conceal  their  hostility.  Amusing  stories  are  told  of  meetings 
between  Mr.  Polycarpe,  the  Greek  Metropolitan,  and  representatives  of  the 
Bulgarian  power,  the  former  being  visibly  torn  between  deference  due  to  con- 
stituted authority  and  inward  revolt.  The  most  exaggerated  statements  about 
the  misconduct  of  the  Bulgarians  emanate  from  Greek  sources.  The  meas- 
ures taken  by  General  Veltchev  are  the  natural  result  of  the  temper  of  bold 
bravado  \vhich  again  took  possession  of  the  conquered  or  hostile  peoples  at  the 
close  of  the  occupation  period.  Mr.  Bogoyev  indeed  told  us  (see  Appendix  G,  5) 


118  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

that  Mr.  Veltchev  called  the  Turkish  and  Greek  notables  together  and  stated  that 
he  should  hold  the  Greek  Metropolitan  specifically  responsible  in  the  event  of  any 
rebellion  of  the  "Young"  Greeks.  The  events  described  above  on  the  ^gean 
coasts  justified  only  too  fully  the  Bulgarians'  suspicions  of  the  Bishop  of  Adria- 
nople  as  the  center  of  the  patriotic  Hellenic  agitation  directed  to  the  recovery  of 
Thracian  autonomy. 

In  the  irritation  produced  by  national  conflict,  reinforced  by  the  "vexatious 
exactions"  to  which  the  natives  were  subjected,  lies  the  explanation  of  their 
verdict  on  the  Bulgarian  regime  in  Adrianople.  Wholesale  and  retail  merchants 
were  thoroughly  displeased  with  the  new  organization  of  the  wagons  employed 
for  importing  goods  as  well  as  with  the  maximum  prices  of  commodities  fixed  by 
the  Bulgarian  authorities.  The  highly  interesting  explanations  of  Mr.  Lambrev, 
apropos  of  Greek  accusations  on  this  head,  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix.  They 
describe  a  most  interesting  social  experiment  whose  aim  was  to  harmonize  mid- 
dlemen's profits  with  the  legitimate  needs  of  the  population. 

Complaints  also  came  from  the  owners  of  houses  occupied  by  Bulgarian 
officers.  Comparisons  between  Bulgarian  and  Servian  officers  are  generally  dis- 
advantageous to  the  former.  Even  friends  of  the  Bulgars  admit  that,  as  far  as 
externals  go,  the  Servians  had  "a  more  distinguished  appearance"  and  that  their 
bearing  made  a  favorable  impression,  in  contrast  to  Bulgarian  "arrogance." 
Obviously,  therefore,  the  Servian  officer  was,  generally  speaking,  preferred  as  an 
inmate  to  his  colleague.  All  the  same  it  is  also  probable  that,  in  the  troublous 
days,  many  people  were  glad  enough  to  have  a  Bulgarian  officer  in  the  house  to 
keep  off  the  blows  of  the  mob  and  the  dubious  protection  of  the  patrols.  To 
this  the  Greek  notables  apparently  afforded  an  exception,  however;  in  certain 
cases  they  met  the  demands  of  the  billeting  committee  with  a  blank  refusal;1 
and  it  was  sometimes  necessary  to  use  compulsion  against  them.  For  example, 
no  suitable  lodging  being  forthcoming  for  General  Kessaptchiev,  he  was  obliged, 
on  his  return  from  Salonica,  to  put  up  at  the  Hotel  du  Commerce. 

It  can  hardly  be  denied  that  there  were  cases  when  departing  officers,  —  and 
not  only  Bulgarian  officers,  —  did  take  with  them  certain  "souvenirs"  of  the 
houses  in  which  they  had  dwelt.  It  is,  however,  a  gross  exaggeration  to  speak 
of  "train  loads  of  pseudo  war  booty"  being  sent  to  Sofia.  Mr.  Chopov  himself 
has  explained  the  "Chopov  case"  (see  Appendix  G,  6)  and  his  explanation  could  be 
confirmed,  if  needful,  by  the  evidence  from  Turkish  merchants.  There  has  been 
a  certain  amount  of  talk  about  the  story  of  Rodrigues,  an  Austrian  subject,  and 
it  is  said  that  the  Bulgarian  authorities  have  promised  the  Inquiry  Commission 
to  assign  responsibility,  and  refund  the  loss.  Laces,  ribbons  and  even  ladies' 
dancing  slippers  are  said  to  have  been  carried  off  from  a  house  in  Adrianople, 
the  residence  of  Nissim-Ben-Sousam. 


members  of  the  Committee  were  Fouad-bey,  the  Mayor   (a  Greek  doctor  named 
Courtidis),  an  Armenian  and  a  Jew. 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  119 

A  Sofia  paper,  the  Dnevmk,  reported  the  naive  admissions  of  Mr.  Nikov,  a 
Bulgarian  officer  and  another  devotee  of  oriental  knick-knacks.  In  the  early 
days  of  the  occupation,  he  saw  an  old  Greek  woman  carrying  a  seat  of  exquisite 
workmanship,  adorned  with  carvings  in  oriental  taste.  All  the  trouble  and  priva- 
tion he  had  had  to  undergo  in  the  long  months  of  the  siege,  in  the  muddy 
trenches,  came  to  his  mind  and  strengthened  his  conviction  that  he  had  a  right 
to  the  precious  piece  of  furniture.  So,  instead  of  conveying  it  to  the  depot 
opened  by  Mr.  Chopov,  he  took  it  from  the  old  woman,  whose  right  to  it  was  the 
same  as  his  own.  These  officers  came  and  gave  evidence  before  the  Commis- 
sion or  made  public  confession.  There  must,  however,  be  others  who  refrained 
from  appearing  or  saying  anything.  The  carpets  of  the  mosque  of  Sultan  Selim 
were  not  touched  and  Mr.  Chopov  bought  his  fairly  and  squarely.  But  a  member 
of  the  Commission  was  told  that  there  was  a  time  when  the  price  of  carpets  fell 
markedly  low,  and  admirable  "windfalls"  were  secured  in  Sofia. 

Again,  sums  of  money  are  said  to  have  been  extorted  for  the  liberation  of 
captured  individuals.  Mr.  Chopov,  for  instance,  speaks  of  the  case  of  the 
Vali  Habil,  whose  freedom  is  said  to  have  been  obtained  by  these  means.  The 
Greeks  in  Adrianople  say  that  he  paid  the  huge  ransom  of  £T40,000.  Such  a 
scandalous  transaction,  had  it  really  taken  place,  could  not  have  passed  unnoted ; 
the  story  must  be  added  to  the  legends  circulated  by  the  Greeks.  At  the  same 
time  the  Commission  would  not  venture  to  affirm  that  there  were  no  abuses 
of  this  character,  on  a  more  modest  scale.  Tales  are  told  in  Adrianople  of  one 
Hadji-Selim,  tobacco  merchant  and  leader  of  a  band,  who  was  finally  executed 
but  whom,  previous  to  his  execution,  they  tried  to  compel  to  sign  a  cheque  for 
£T  1.000  to  his  credit  as  a  deposit  in  the  National  Bank  of  Bulgaria.  Hadji-Selim 
is  said  to  have  signed  but  to  have  repudiated  his  signature  in  prison  on  the  eve 
of  execution,  in  the  presence  of  the  public  prosecutor,  the  director  of  the  Otto- 
man Bank  who  had  had  the  cheque  presented  to  him,  his  assistant  and  some 
officers. 

These  incidents,  of  interest  to  the  moralist  in  the  tangle  they  present  of 
human  weakness  and  honest  effort,  conscientious  performance  of  duty  and  the 
crimes  that  follow  in  the  conqueror's  train,  may  be  left  to  the  judgment  of  the 
reader:  a  judgment  that  must  allow  for  the  exceptional  circumstances  of  a  great 
city  in  a  state  of  siege.  There  could  be  no  question,  at  this  stage,  of  the  normal 
administration  established  later  on  when  the  Turks  returned  as  a  "tertius  gau- 
dens,"  when  war  broke  out  again  after  the  disagreement  between  the  allies  and 
the  violation  of  the  first  conventions.  We  have  only  now  to  report  the  events 
of  the  last  period  of  Bulgarian  occupation. 

THE    LAST    DAYS    OF    THE    OCCUPATION 

On  July  6/19,  the  administrative  officials  in  Adrianople  received  orders  to 
return  to  Bulgaria.  The  telegram  arrived  at  11.30  at  night;  the  public  knew 


120  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

nothing  of  it.  At  midnight  the  Rechadie  Gardens  were  still  full  of  people,  the 
inevitable  cinematograph  films  passing  before  the  idlers'  eyes.  The  departure 
of  the  Bulgarians  was  sudden.  That  is  why  they  left  their  cannon,  their  store 
of  ammunition  and  their  supplies  behind  them;  why  also  the  accusations  of 
pillage  and  outrage  made  against  them  fall  away,  since  the  very  conditions  of 
their  departure  made  them  impossible.  In  their  haste  they  even  forgot  to  remove 
the  sentinels  stationed  at  the  doors  of  some  protected  houses.  Bulgarian  mer- 
chants complained  bitterly  of  the  secrecy  with  which  the  move  was  carried  out 
xby  the  authorities.  It  did  indeed  take  everybody  by  surprise. 
<fc  The  authorities  left  Adrianople  on  the  night  of  July  6-7  (19-20).  The 
Turks  however  did  not  arrive.  In  the  city  itself  Major  Morfov,  with  his  seventy 
gendarmes,  and  Commandant  Manov,  represented  law  and  order,  but  there  were 
no  regular  authorities  at  the  station  or  in  the  Karagatch  quarter,  and  here  de- 
plorable incidents  took  place.  On  July  7,  some  eight  military  trains  left  the 
Karagatch  station;  by  the  time  the  last  train  but  one  departed  the  marauders 
were  already  at  work  and  had  to  be  fired  at  from  the  carriage  roofs.  A  fire 
broke  out  in  the  depots,,  started,  say  the  Greek  witnesses,  by  a  detachment  of 
Bulgarian  infantry  on  its  way  from  the  south  towards  Mustapha  Pasha.  Some 
of  these  same  soldiers  told  the  brothers  of  the  Assumption  that  the  depots  had 
been  fired  by  peasants,  the  Bulgarian  army  being  beyond  the  station  and  the 
depots  at  that  time.  According  to  their  statement  the  soldiers  only  set  fire  to  the 
barracks,  which  was  also  used  as  an  arsenal.  Anyhow,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
pillaging  began  under  the  eyes  of  the  Bulgarians  as  they  got  on  board  the  trains ; 
that  the  pillagers  were  peasants  from  Karagatch  and  the  adjoining  districts, 
Tcheurek-Keui  and  Dolou-djaros;  that  the  soldiers  tried  to  fire  on  them  but  the 
departure  of  the  trains  left  them  free  to  continue  their  pillaging.  The  peasants 
then  armed  the  Turkish  prisoners  working  on  the  railway — the  same,  evidently, 
of  whom  Mr.  Bogoyev  speaks.  During  the  evening  of  July  7/20,  the  inhabitants 
of  Karagatch  laid  in  stores  of  petrol,  meal,  etc.,  taken  from  the  depots. 

Time  went  on  and  the  Turks  did  not  appear.  The  Bulgarians  accordingly 
returned  on  the  morning  of  Monday,  July  8/21.  They  began  by  disarming  the 
Turkish  prisoners.  The  scene  described  by  Mr.  Bogoyev,  when  the  Bulgarians 
fired  on  the  prisoners  and  slew  at  least  ten  of  them,  must  have  occurred  at  this 
stage.  According  to  the  explanation  given  at  the  time  by  the  Bulgarian  officer 
holding  the  station,  the  prisoners  tried  to  take  flight  in  the  belief  that  the  Turkish 
.army  was  already  in  Adrianople.  When  the  Bulgarians  asked  where  the 
Turkish  prisoners  could  have  got  arms,  they  were  informed  that  these  were 
supplied  by  the  population.  From  that  time  on  the  Bulgarians  watched  the 
inhabitants  of  Karagatch  vigilantly.  Their  houses  were  visited  and  they  were 
ordered  to  hand  over  whatever  had  been  taken  by  anybody  from  the  depots 
within  a  certain  time  (up  to  3  o'clock  in  the  afternoon),  after  which  requisition 
tvould  be  made  by  force  and  punishment  made. 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  121 

Towards  evening  domiciliary  visitations  were  in  fact  instituted.  It  is  not 
quite  clear  how  the  forty-five  persons  arrested  were  selected.  One  of  them,  the 
sole  survivor,  Pandeli  (Panteleimon),  declared  that  it  was  his  twelve-year-old 
son  who  had  taken  some  meal  from  the  depot;  he,  the  father,  had  restored 
the  booty,  as  was  ordered,  the  original  order  having  been  that  the  goods  restored 
should  be  deposited  in  the  streets,  but  after  that  he  and  his  comrades  in  mis-  t 
fortune  had  been  detained  to  carry  the  sacks  to  the  station.  Pandeli  described 
what  followed  in  detail  and  his  story,  tested  by  the  Commissioner  making  the 
report  by  comparison  with  two  other  witnesses,  one  grecophil,  the  other  bulgaro- 
phil,  is  here  reproduced.  He  said: 

In  the  evening  (July  8/21)  the  wretched  creatures  were  bound  to- 
gether in  fours  by  their  belts  and  conducted  along  the  Marache  road  by  an 
escort  of  sixty  soldiers.  Their  money  and  watches  were  taken  from  them 
before  they  were  bound.  They  were  told  that  they  were  being  taken  to 
Bulgaria,  but  when  the  soldiers  got  near  the  bridge  across  the  Arda,  someone 
shouted,  "Run  quickly,  the  train  is  coming!"  They  crossed  the  bridge  and 
reached  the  opposite  bank.  There  they  were  placed  in  line,  their  faces  to 
the  river,  and  pushed  into  the  water.  A  horrible  scene  followed.  While 
the  poor  devils  floundered  about  the  soldiers  fired  on  any  whose  heads 
appeared  above  the  water.  Pandeli  owed  his  life  to  a  desperate  movement. 
As  he  fell  into  the  water  he  broke  with  an  effort  the  belt  fastening  him  to 
his  companions.  In  the  water,  alone  and  free,  he  began  to  swim,  raising 
his  head  from  time  to  time.  The  shots  directed  at  him  luckily  did  not  hit  him. 
He  then  pretended  to  be  dead,  and  lying  on  his  back,  allowed  the  current 
to  carry  him  along.  For  some  time  he  lost  consciousness,  then  found  himself 
stopped  by  a  tree.  He  crawled  up  the  wooded  bank  on  all  fours.  A  coach- 
man seeing  him  fled,  terrified  by  his  looks.  During  the  night  he  made  his 
way  back  to  the  Hildyrym  quarter  and  went  to  the  house  of  his  apprentice. 
(Pandeli  is  a  carpenter  in  the  Karagatch  steam  mills.) 

The  photograph  (p.  122)  shows  the  corpses  of  some  of  the  forty-four  vic- 
tims who  were  fished  out  of  the  river  some  days  later.  The  miserable  episode 
•did  not  come  under  the  cognizance  of  the  responsible  Bulgarian  authorities,  but 
there  can  be  no  doubt  of  its  truth.  The  panic  and  excitement  of  the  final 
moments  of  departure  can  not  be  held  to  exonerate  those  guilty  of  it.  The 
member  of  the  Commission  who  made  inquiry  on  the  spot,  learned  from  the 
"brothers  of  the  Assumption  that  other  persons  were  arrested  for  acts  of  pillage, 
"but  they  were  left  as  they  arrived  at  the  station,  people  shouting  to  the  escorting 
soldiers  from  the  carriages  of  the  last  train:  "Hurry  up,  the  train  is  going." 
This  happened  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  on  July  9. 

The  departure  of  the  Bulgarians  was  then  a  hurried  one.  It  follows  that 
it  is  false  to  urge  that  "the  Bulgarians,  knowing  that  the  Turks  were  going  to 
return,  had  made  every  preparation  for  the  final  massacre";  that  "they  were 
going  to  massacre  the  Mussulmen,  while  the  Armenians,  whom  they  had  care- 
fully armed,  were  to  be  compelled  to  exterminate  the  Greeks."  The  Bulgarians 


122 


REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 


^ 

> 


n 

* 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  123 

made  no  preparations  for  their  own  departure,  and  the  "nightmares"  spoken  of 
in  the  quotation  from  Mr.  Pierre  Loti's  article  in  JJ 1 1 lustration,  never  had  any 
existence  save  in  the  lively  imagination  of  the  Greek  population  which  had  been 
heated  by  agitators.  The  dramatic  picture  of  the  "last  night,"  as  described  by 
the  eminent  French  author,  thus  betrays  but  too  distinctly  the  sources  from 
which  it  was  drawn.  Take  one  more  detail  in  the  same  article.  Mr.  Loti  speaks 
of  a  young  Turkish  officer,  Rechid-bey,  son  of  Fouad,  "captured"  by  the  Bul- 
garians in  a  final  skirmish  on  the  retreat.  "They  (the  Bulgarians)  tore  out 
his  two  eyeballs,"  says  our  author,  "cut  off  his  two  arms  and  then  disappeared. 
This  was  their  last  crime."  Assuredly  Rechid's  death  did  produce  a  profound 
impression  in  the  Turkish  army,  where  he  had  many  friends.  The  Commis- 
sion's investigator  was  shown  the  monument  set  up  to  his  memory  and  recently 
consecrated  on  the  Mustapha  Pasha  road.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  Turks 
showed  more  equity  than  their  admirer.  When  the  investigator  went  to  the 
office  of  the  Tanine  at  Constantinople  to  verify  the  facts,  he  was  told  by  the 
paper's  special  correspondent  in  Adrianople  that  in  the  affray  Rechid  had  re- 
ceived a  mortal  wound  from  which  death  followed  instantaneously.  The  mutila- 
tion was  but  too  real;  the  torture,  however,  an  absolute  invention.  Even  at 
Adrianople  people  talked  of  Rechid's  dismembered  ears  and  hands — his  hands 
being  beautiful — but  no  one  ever  spoke  of  his  eyes  being  put  out. 

The  account  given  above  of  affairs  in  Adrianople  is  far  from  exhausting 
the  evidence  collected  by  the  Commission.  The  curious  reader  may  find  fuller 
particulars  in  the  Appendix,  where  he  can  read  the  documents  in  proof  of  what 
we  say.  Unfortunately  the  major  portion  of  the  depositions  taken  at  Adrianople 
itself  can  not  be  published  or  reported  in  detail  since  they  were  given  confiden- 
tially. But  the  reader  will  readily  understand  that  it  is  those  very  depositions, 
collected  on  the  spot,  which  corroborate  and  support  those  used  by  the  Com- 
mission in  this  report. 

2.     THRACE 

In  order  to  gain  a  personal  idea  of  events  in  Thrace  in  the  course  of  the  two 
wars,  a  member  of  the  Commission  went  to  see  the  villages  situated  to  the  east 
of  Adrianople.  He  visited  the  villages  of  Havsa,  Osmanly,  Has-Keui,  Souyoutli 
and  Iskender-Keui.  The  first  of  these  had  been  visited  by  Mr.  Pierre  Loti,  who 
gave  a  description  of  it  in  L' Illustration.  Unfortunately  while  describing  the 
Bulgarian  atrocities  in  this  mixed  village,  Mr.  Loti  has  not  been  informed  that 
two  steps  off,  at  Osmanly,  there  was  a  Bulgarian  village  where  the  Turks  had 
taken  their  revenge. 

Havsa  is  composed  of  two  quarters,  the  Mussulman  and  the  Christian. 
The  Christians  here  call  themselves  "Greeks"  but  they  are  Bulgarian  patriarch- 
ists.  Their  quarter  was  not  burned.  The  whole  population  remained  there. 
The  Turkish  quarter,  on  the  other  hand,  was  almost  entirely  burned.  The 
Turkish  population  fled  the  village  on  the  Bulgarians'  approach,  that  is  to  say 


124  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

at  the  beginning  of  the  first  war.  These  Turks  took  refuge  in  Constantinople 
and  in  Asia  Minor.  They  are  now  beginning  to  come  back ;  fifty  or  sixty  families 
have  arrived  from  Brousse,  the  Dardanelles  and  Akcheir.  One  might  have 
thought  that  everyone  had  gone;  there  could  have  been  no  one  left  to  suffer 
atrocities.  Unhappily  there  were  some  exceptions.  Rachid,  an  aged  inhabitant 
of  the  village,  told  what  follows  to  a  member  of  the  Commission.  Four  Turkish 
families  had  been  unwilling  to  take  flight.  They  remained.  The  names  of  the 
heads  of  these  families  were  Moustafa,  Sadyk,  Achmed  Kodja,  and  a  fourth 
whose  name  has  escaped  us.  These  families  were  slain  by  the  Bulgarians,  who 
also  put  to  death  Basile  Papasoglou,  Avdji,  Christo,  Lember-Oghlu  and  Anas- 
tasius.  All  the  women  were  outraged,  but  it  is  not  true,  as  Mr.  Loti  asserts,  that 
they  were  killed.  Only  one  woman,  Aicha,  was  killed;  and  the  wife  of  Sadyk, 
who  was  among  the  slain,  went  out  of  her  mind. 

In  the  village  there  were  two  mosques.  One  of  the  mosques  was  turned 
into  an  ammunition  depot.  Another,  described  by  Mr.  Loti,  was  really  seriously 
damaged.  The  member  of  the  Commission  found  traces  of  blood  on  the  floor. 
The  rubrics  from  the  Koran  in  the  interior  were  in  part  spoiled,  the  Moaphil 
place  destroyed,  the  marble  member  half  broken,  the  pillars  smashed.  The 
dung  seen  by  Mr.  Loti  in  the  minaret  had  gone,  but  some  traces  of  it  remained. 
A  hole  made  in  the  cupola  enabled  one  to  get  above  the  higher  portion  of  the 
ceiling;  a  hole  had  been  made  in  the  middle  of  the  ceiling  and  Rachid  stated  to 
the  member  of  the  Commission  that  from  here,  too,  dung  was  spread  on  the 
floor  below.  The  sacrilegious  intention  was  even  more  clearly  visible  in  the  way 
in  which  the  cemetery  was  treated.  "All"  the  headstones  were  not  broken,  as 
Mr.  Loti  states,  but  some  of  them  were.  It  is  likewise  true  that  one  of  the 
graves  is  open.  In  the  bottom  of  the  trench  the  member  of  the  Commission 
found  the  remains  of  a  brandy  bottle;  relic  of  a  joyous  revel!  Justice  compels 
the  further  remark,  that  the  authors  of  this  infamous  deed  are  unknown,  and  that 
there  are  grounds  for  attributing  it  to  the  people  of  the  locality,  rather  than  to 
the  regulars.  It  was  noted  that  the  miscreants  confined  their  attentions  to  recent 
headstones  and  graves,  leaving  the  older  ones. 

As  has  already  been  said,  at  a  short  distance  from  Havsa  is  Osmanly,  a 
Bulgarian  village,  and  there  the  Turks  took  their  revenge,  when  they  returned 
after  the  retreat  of  the  Bulgarians.  There  were  114  Christian  Bulgarian  houses 
in  the  village.  Not  a  single  one  was  spared.  The  churches  in  the  villages  were 
burned  and  razed  to  the  ground.  The  member  of  the  Commission  could  see 
nothing  but  the  outline  of  the  precincts  and  the  remains  of  the  walls.  Research 
in  the  interior  recovered  nothing  but  the  debris  of  two  chandeliers.  The  member 
of  the  Commission,  investigating  among  the  cinders,  discovered  some  bits  of  half 
burned  paper ;  they  were  fragments  of  the  Gospel  and  the  Sunday  office,  in  Greek 
characters  (see  p.  125).  The  population  had  fled  to  Adrianople  and  from  the  Bul- 
garian frontier,  i.  e.,  towards  Our  Pasha.  The  whole  of  the  cattle  had  been  lost. 
Some  dozen  villagers  were,  however,  working  at  the  harvest  in  the  village.  They 


BULGARIANS,   TURKS  AND  SERVIANS 


125 


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126  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

explained  to  the  member  of  the  Commission  that  the  oxen  they  were  using 
belonged  to  Turks  from  other  villages  whose  farmers  they  themselves  were. 

The  next  village  is  Has-Kem,  a  repetition  of  Havsa.  The  Bulgarian  quarter 
(here  they  are  called  "Greeks,"  and  they  sing  in  Greek  at  church)  remained 
intact,  but  the  cattle  were  carried  off  together  with  the  produce  of  the  harvest. 
Our  traveling  companion,  a  Turk,  ventured  the  hypothesis  that  this  might  have 
been  the  work  of  bashi-bazouks.  But  a  peasant  who  was  present  and  spoke  in 
Bulgarian  to  the  member  of  the  Commission,  said  distinctly  that  it  was  "askers," 
the  regulars  who  had  pillaged  and  taken  everything  without  payment.  Going  on 
to  the  Mussulman  quarter,  we  found  it  still  in  a  state  of  devastation.  Of  fifty- 
five  houses  only  twenty-five  remained.  This  portion  of  the  village  was  empty, 
and  it  was  explained  to  the  Commission  that  the  men  of  the  village  had  gone  to 
Adrianople  in  search  of  their  families.  'The  refugees  who  had  returned  (some 
twenty-five  or  thirty  families)  had  gone  to  dwell  in  the  Christian  quarter, 

Of  the  two  mosques  in  the  village,  one  had  been  entirely  destroyed  and 
razed  level  with  the  ground,  and  the  school  adjoining  treated  in  the  same  way. 
The  other  mosque,  which  was  converted  into  an  ammunition  depot,  was  also 
damaged,  especially  inside;  several  headstones  in  the  cemetery  have  been  broken 
down. 

The  two  Mussulman  villages  situated  between  Has-Keui  and  Adrianople, — 
Souyoutli-dere  and  Iskender-Keui, — underwent  the  same  fate  as  the  preceding 
ones.  Of  the  eighty-seven  houses  in  Souyoutli  only  eight  or  ten,  with  forty  or 
fifty  inhabitants,  remain.  The  population  had  gone  to  Anatolia.  Those  who 
return  dwell  among  the  ruins,  which  they  arrange  as  best  they  can  to  shelter 
them  from  sun  and  rain.  They  call  these  wretched  habitations  "colibi"  (huts). 

Iskender-Keu:  suffered  even  more  severely.  Out  of  eighty  houses  but  four 
or  five  remain.  The  population  fled  to  Adrianople ;  all  have  now  returned.  The 
few  houses  still  standing  owe  their  preservation  to  the  fact  that  they  were  occu- 
pied by  Bulgarians.  The  mosque  and  school  of  the  village  were  razed  level 
with  the  ground. 

The  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  this  description  is,  that  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  first  war  the  Bulgarians  destroyed  the  Mussulman 
villages,  that  the  population  fled  almost  to  a  man,  and  that  the  national  Mussul- 
man institutions,  mosques  and  schools,  suffered  specially.  Evidently  these  are 
not  isolated  or  fortuitous  events.  They  represent  national  tactics.  Bulgarian 
officers  have  endeavored  to  explain  this  conduct  to  the  Commission,  pleading 
that  the  material  of  the  houses  was  used  to  make  winter  cantonments  for  the 
army.  Apart  from  the  fact  that  such  an  explanation  is  equivalent  to  an  avowal, 
it  is  inadequate  to  the  extent  of  the  devastation,  and  fails  to  meet  the  destruction 
of  places  of  worship  and  schools. 

Coming  now  to  July,  the  Bulgarians  began  to  retreat  while  the  Turks 
assumed  the  offensive.  Thrace  again  became  the  theater  of  war.  Enver-bey  is 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  127 

accused  with  considerable  unanimity  of  having  sent  Arabian  and  Kurdish  cavalry 
ahead  of  his  regular  troops.  These  "Arabs"  are  often  indicated,  in  the  victim's 
stories,  as  being  the  authors  of  crimes.  The  Commission  has  collected  a  body 
of  evidence  to  the  effect  that  Turkish  officers  themselves  sometimes  warned 
those  whom  they  were  protecting  of  the  approach  of  the  "Arabs,"  and  told  them 
to  be  on  their  guard.  An  "Arab"  soldier,  a  Catholic,  actually  admitted  to  one  of 
his  friends  that  the  express  orders  of  their  captains  were  first  to  burn  and 
ravage,  then  to  kill  all  the  males,  next  the  women  (here  again  all  took  flight)  ; 
and  that  he  had  personally  carried  out  the  orders  given  him.  We  should  not 
mention  this  story  were  it  not  that  it  comes  from  an  excellent  source,  the  name 
of  the  soldier  being  known  to  us,  though  we  naturally  refrain  from  giving 
it  here. 

These  remarks  made  and  conclusions  established,  we  may  pass  to  another 
part  of  Thrace,  in  order  to  follow  the  advance  of  the  Turkish  offensive,  in 
relation  to  alleged  excesses. 

The  member  of  the  Commission  had  opportunity  of  free  conversation  with 
the  Bulgarian  refugees  in  Constantinople  itself.  They  passed  through  Constan- 
tinople in  groups.  The  Commission's  member  did  not  encounter  the  group  of 
ninety  persons  from  the  villages  of  Tchanaktche,  Tarf,  Yeni-Tchiflik,  Seimen 
and  Sinekeli;  nor  the  group  of  190  from  Baba-Eski  and  Lule-Bourgas.  But 
the  third  group  of  sixty-two  persons  was  still  there.  There  were  hardly  any 
but  old  people,  women  and  children.  Most  of  them  were  refugees  from  the 
villages  of  Karagatch  (130  houses),  Koum-seid  (twenty-eight  houses),  and 
Meselim  (ten  houses),  peopled  by  Bulgarians  whom  the  Turks  had  brought  from 
the  village  of  Bourgas. 

The  following  is  the  somewhat  rambling  story  told  to  the  Commission  by 
an  inhabitant  of  Koum-seid,  who  had  reached  Constantinople  on  the  previous 
night,  still  haunted  by  recollected  horrors : 

It  was  Wednesday  the  3d  (16th).  It  was  night  and  the  village  slept.  All 
at  once  the  Turks  arrived.  *  *  *  The  women  and  children  were  in  a 
frenzy.  *  *  *  They  asked  for  money.  They  killed  many  people.  Nico- 
las the  shopkeeper  (bakal)  was  killed,  Stoyan  Kantchev  was  killed  and  also 
his  son,  fifteen  years  old.  Next  came  the  turn  of  Demetrius  Stoyanov, 
Saranda  Medeltchev,  Demetrius  Gheorgiev,  Petro  Stoyanov,  Heli  Athanasov 
and  his  brother,  Cone  Athanasov  (these  are  his  children)  ;  next  Nicolas 
Gheorghiev,  his  wife  and  his  twelve  year  old  son;  Demetrius  Daoudjiski. 
Demetrius  Christov,  Christo  Dimitrov — 120  persons  were  gathered  together 
in  a  single  house;  the  Arabs  arrived  and  asked  them  "Who  are  you?"  and 
they  replied  "We  are  Greeks."  Thereupon  they  were  asked  for  money. 
Everything  was  taken.  Their  pockets  were  searched.  On  the  cries  of  the 
victims  the  cavalry  came  up.  They  did  not  touch  the  people ;  it  was  the 
"Arabs"  who  attacked  them.  The  attack  on  the  village  did  not  last 
more  than  fifteen  minutes.  Then  the  Turks  went  away  in  the  direction  of 
Lule-Bourgas.  *  *  *  However,  the  next  day  more  "Arabs"  arrived.  *  *  * 


128  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

As  the  Commission  left  Constantinople,  they  met  everywhere  in  Thrace  the 
traces  of  this  Arab  cavalry,  following  on  local  reprisals  and  hatreds,  and  the 
excesses  of  the  bashi-bazouks  who  took  advantage  of  the  anarchy  inevitable 
in  transition  from  one  regime  to  another. 

Unhappily  time  did  not  allow  the  Commission  to  visit  the  places  which  bore 
the  first  brunt  of  the  rage  of  the  Turkish  army  when  it  resumed  the  offensive; 
but  the  evidence  collected  by  them  at  Constantinople  and  in  Bulgaria,  when 
collated  with  the  reports  of  special  Armenian  delegations  and  some  well  authen- 
ticated documents  emanating  from  a  fresh  official  source,  may  supply  the  defect 
of  personal  observation.  It  seems  that  at  the  moment  of  crossing  the  frontier,, 
which  had  appeared  for  some  months  so  definitively  established  by  the  Bulgarian 
conquest,  two  sentiments  ruled  in  the  Turkish  army  and  population.  There  was 
vengeance  on  those  of  their  Christian  subjects  who  had  joined  friendship  with 
the  Bulgarian  invaders  in  the  first  instance,  and  then  with  the  Armenians.  The 
Greeks,  although  they  too  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  Turks,  were  rather 
on  their  side.  They  too  profited  by  Turkey's  recovery  to  wipe  out  the  traces 
of  Bulgarian  domination  and  reestablish  their  own  national  pretensions.  They 
therefore  hailed  the  Turks'  return  and  often  served  them  as  guides  and  spies. 
The  second  feeling,  natural  enough  in  the  Moslem  population  returning  with  the 
army  to  deserted  villages,  was  to  recover  their  goods  and  take  them  away  from 
their  new  owners. 

At  Rodosto,  retaken  July  1/14,  by  200  volunteers  who  arrived  on  board  an 
Ottoman  gunboat,  the  first  act  of  the  reestablished  Ottoman  power  was  the  fol- 
lowing proclamation  to  the  Christian  and  Jewish  population  of  the  Sandjak: 

Anyone  in  possession  of  goods  or  arms  belonging  to  the  government 
or  cattle  or  goods  belonging  to  emigres  in  the  local  population,  which  have 
been  appropriated  during  the  Bulgarian  occupation,  is  invited  to  come  and 
restore  them  to  the  Special  Commission  sitting  at  Rodosto.  Two  days' 
delay  are  allowed,  starting  from  today  (July  5/18)  for  those  who  are  in 
Rodosto,  three  days  for  those  dwelling  in  the  villages.  After  the  lapse  of 
this  delay  any  one  found  with  appropriated  goods  in  his  possession  will  be 
treated  with  all  the  rigor  of  the  laws. 

But  the  volunteers  and  emigres  returning  home  did  not  wait  for  the  end  of 
this  nominal  delay.  The  moment  of  their  arrival  they  began  pillaging  and 
massacring  the  indigenous  population.  The  volunteers  had  but  just  disembarked 
at  Rodosto  when  they  slew  the  Bulgarian  commissary  who  handed  the  town 
over  to  them;  they  divided  themselves  into  groups,  with  four  or  five  bashi- 
bazouks  at  the  head  of  each,  and  hastily  organized  pillage  and  massacre.  They 
slew  the  Armenians  whom  they  met  in  the  market  place,  then  the  people  being 
once  shut  up  in  their  houses,  ransacked  the  houses  under  pretext  of  searching 
for  Bulgarian  soldiers  and  officers  there.  The  foreign  consuls  intervened;  then 
the  assailants  turned  their  activities  to  the  country  outside  the  town,  where  no 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  129 

control  could  be  exercised.  The  results  were  nineteen  corpses  buried  in  Rodosto 
and  eighty-one  victims  disappeared  and  evidently  slain  in  the  fields.  This  last 
figure  should  be  higher, — some  put  it  at  300.  The  more  well-to-do  had  to  pay 
for  their  safety  between  twenty  and  sixty  Turkish  pounds  a  head.  Money, 
jewels  and  watches  disappeared.  Even  so  they  were  well  off,  for  at  eight  hours' 
distance  from  Rodosto,  in  Malgara,  the  catastrophe  assumed  much  larger  propor- 
tions. There  the  population  was  taken  by  surprise;  there  were  no  consuls. 
The  heads  of  the  Armenian  community  were  arrested  by  the  Governor  at 
Rodosto.  The  Bulgarian  police  had  just  quitted  the  town,  which  for  a  day 
remained  without  any  authorities  or  public  force  (July  1  and  2,  old  style).  We 
can  not  here  transcribe  the  eloquent  story  told  by  the  Armenian  delegation  of 
what  happened  at  Malgara  in  this  state  of  anarchy.  The  reader  will  find  it  in 
the  Appendix.  But  some  points,  common  to  the  whole  of  this  work  of  destruc- 
tion, may  be  mentioned.  Here  again  the  motive  is  the  same  as  at  Rodosto  and 
everywhere  else;  the  military  commander  of  the  place  addresses  the  Armenian 
notables  summoned  before  him,  in  these  terms: — "Armenian  traitors,  you  have 
in  your  possession  arms  and  other  objects  stolen  from  the  Moslems."  A  sub- 
lieutenant uses  the  other  argument  referred  to: — "You  other  Armenians,  you 
have  largely  assisted  the  Bulgarians,  but  today  you  shall  have  your  reward." 
Such  terms  encouraged  the  population  not  to  wait  until  legal  measures  were 
taken.  On  the  second  and  third  days  of  the  occupation  public  criers  in  the 
Armenian  quarters  order  "those  who  have  stolen  goods  belonging  to  Moslems 
or  who  are  in  possession  of  arms,  to  give  them  up."  On  the  fourth  day  an 
opportunity  for  beginning  the  attack  presents  itself.  Two  terrified  Armenians, 
on  being  called  on  by  the  soldiers  to  show  them  the  Ouzoun-Keupru  road,  run 
away  instead  of  answering.  The  signal  is  given;  the  soldiers,  the  crowd,  put 
lighted  torches  soaked  in  petrol  to  the  houses  of  the  culprits;  and  the  burning 
of  the  Armenian  quarter  begins.  At  the  same  time  pillage  and  massacre  are 
going  on  in  the  market.  Some  Armenian  soldiers  stop  the  fire,  but  it  breaks 
out  again  in  the  market  and  thanks  to  the  strong  wind  assumes  terrifying  propor- 
tions. Explosions  of  barrels  of  benzine,  alcohol,  etc.,  are  heard;  the  crowd 
takes  them  for  hidden  bombs.  Finally  the  Kaimakam,  the  representative  of  civil 
authority,  arrives  at  Malgara,  accompanied  by  the  captain  of  police  and  a  police- 
man. Even  by  standing  surety  for  their  lives,  he  hardly  succeeds  in  persuading 
the  frantic  Armenians  to  come  out  of  their  hiding  places  and  organize  a  little 
band  of  some  fifty  to  sixty  young  people  who  get  the  fire  under.  Results,  in  the 
town  itself,  to  say  nothing  of  the  environs :  twelve  Armenians  killed,  ten  wounded, 
eight  disappeared,  seven  imprisoned,  eighty-seven  houses  and  218  shops  burned,* 
a  material  loss  amounting  to  f  TSOjOOO.1  This  time  there  was  also  an  epilogue. 

lLe  Jeune  Turc  of  August  12  actually  admits  that  139  houses  and  300  shops  were 
burned  at  Malgara.  It  adds :  "with  the  exception  of  two  houses  the  entire  village  of 
Galliopa,  consisting  of  280  houses,  was  destroyed  by  fire;  299  houses  were  the  prey  of 
flames  in  eleven  Christian  villages,  thirty-five  persons  were  killed  and  nine  wounded. 


130  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

An  Ottoman  commission  of  inquiry  tries  to  cast  the  responsibility  of  the  pillage 
and  assassinations  *  *  *  on  the  Armenians  themselves. 

The  real  massacre  begins  however  when  the  Turkish  army  meets  Bulgarians 
on  its  route,  and  the  events  described  at  Rodosto  and  Malgara  fade  before  those 
which  took  place  at  Boulgar-Keuii,  "a  Bulgarian  village,"  as  its  name  shows. 
Boulgar-Keui  is,  or  rather  was,  a  village  of  420  houses  some  miles  from  the  town 
of  Kechane  and  not  far  from  another  village  of  400  houses,  Pichman-Keui, 
whose  fate  was  similar.  The  information  collected  by  the  Commission  as  to 
these  atrocious  events  comes  from  different  sources  and  the  evidence  agrees  in 
the  smallest  details.  The  refugees,  women  for  the  most  part,  scattered  in  all 
directions.  They  were  found  at  Haskovo  and  Varna  in  Bulgaria,  where  two 
agents  of  the  Balkan  Relief  Society  questioned  them  and  transmitted  their  depo- 
sitions to  a  member  of  the  Commission, — depositions  that  though  coming  from 
places  very  far  distant  from  each  other  are  identical  in  terms.  Another  member 
of  the  Commission  was  able  to  meet  in  Constantinople  a  male  survivor  of  the 
horrors  of  Boulgar-Keui  and  thus  obtained  possession  of  some  unpublished  Greek 
official  documents  which  confirm  and  complete  the  oral  depositions.  From  all 
these  sources  an  absolute  certainty  emerges  that  the  purpose  was  the  complete 
extermination  of  the  Bulgarian  population  by  the  military  authorities  in  execu- 
tion of  a  systematic  plan. 

These  events  recall  those  at  Rodosto  and  Malgara,  but  the  end  is  different. 
The  Bulgarian  peasants,  like  the  populations  of  the  towns  referred  to,  had  as  a 
matter  of  fact  appropriated  the  goods  of  the  Turkish  emigres,  their  coats,  do- 
mestic utensils,  cash,  etc.  The  Turkish  soldiers  in  their  turn  lay  hands  on  what 
they  can  find;  they  demand  money,  they  carry  off  clothes,  they  lead  off  the 
big  cattle  over  the  frontier  to  the  village  of  Mavro.  Thus  a  whole  week  passes, 
July  2-7.  Soon,  however,  everything  changes.  The  order  is  given  to  collect 
the  whole  male  population  at  the  bottom  of  the  village  to  receive  instructions. 
The  witness  spoken  of  above  believed  the  order  to  be  a  lie  and  preferred  remain- 
ing at  home,  thereby  saving  his  "life.  Nearly  300  men  appeared.  They  were 
all  killed  on  the  spot  by  a  fusillade.  Only  three  men  escaped,  one  of  them  being 
wounded  (John  K.  Kazakov).  The  depositions  of  the  women  complete  the 
picture.  At  Haskovo  they  told  the  agents  of  the  English  Relief  Committee  that 
the  Turks  went  from  house  to  house  seeking  for  male  inhabitants  over  sixteen 
years  of  age.  Two  shepherds,  Dimtre  Todorov  and  George  Matov,  added  that 
the  Greeks  helped  the  Turks  to  tie  the  Bulgarians'  hands  with  cords.  A  young 
woman  refugee  at  Varna  described  how  her  husband,  father  and  two  of  her 
brothers  were  shot  in  front  of  their  house.  Another  stated  that  at  Haskovo 
she  had  seen  the  Greeks  sprinkle  her  husband  and  some  other  men  with  petrol 
and  then  burn  them.  Other  women  at  Varna  confirmed  this  horrible  story  and 
added  that  the  number  of  victims  who  perished  in  this  way  was  twenty-three. 
A  shepherd  saw  the  same  scene,  hidden  in  a  neighboring  place  of  refuge.  The 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  131 

women  put  the  total  number  of  men  killed  at  Boulgar-Keui  at  450  (out  of  700). 
The  Constantinople  witness  adds  that  all  this  was  going  on  up  to  July  29  (old 
style)  when  he  left  the  village.  At  the  end  of  this  period  the  Turks  began 
sticking  notices  on  the  walls  that  there  was  to  be  no  more  killing.  A  portion  of 
the  population  believed  it  and  returned.  But  as  the  male  population  returned 
killing  began  again  by  twos,  threes  and  fives.  The  people  were  led  into  a  gorge 
and  there  shot  down.  The  witness  saw  that  at  Pitch-Bonnar  and  at  Sivri-Tepe : 
in  the  first  place  he  saw  as  many  as  six  corpses  and  recognized  one  of  the  six 
as  the  "deaf"  Ghirdjik-Tliya. 

The  methods  employed  with  the  women  were  different.  They  were  out- 
raged, and  Greeks,  clad,  according  to  the  witnesses,  in  a  sort  of  uniform,  did 
the  same  as  the  Turks.  In  the  villages  of  Pichman,  Ouroun-Begle  and  Mavro, 
the  Greeks  were  indeed  the  sole  culprits,  and  they  outraged  more  than  400 
women,  going  from  one  to  another.  Young  men  who  tried  to  defend  their 
betrothed  were  taken  and  shot.  A  woman  of  Haskovo  described  how  her  little 
child  was  thrown  up  into  the  air  by  a  Turkish  soldier  who  caught  it  on  the  point 
of  his  bayonet.  Other  women  told  how  three  young  girls  threw  themselves  into 
a  well  after  their  fiances  were  shot.  At  Varna  about  twenty  women  living 
together  confirmed  this  story,  and  added  that  the  Turkish  soldiers  went  down 
into  the  well  and  dragged  the  girls  out.  Two  of  them  were  dead;  the  third  had 
a  broken  leg ;  despite  her  agony  she  was  outraged  by  two  Turks.  Other  women 
of  Varna  saw  the  soldier  who  had  transfixed  the  baby  on  his  bayonet  carrying 
it  in  triumph  across  the  village. 

The  outraged  women  felt  shame  at  telling  their  misfortunes.  But  finally 
some  of  them  gave  evidence  before  the  English  agents.  They  said  that  the 
Greeks  and  Turks  spared  none  from  little  girls  of  twelve  up  to  an  old  woman 
of  ninety.  The  young  woman  who  saw  her  father,  husband  and  brothers  perish 
before  their  house  was  afterwards  separated  from  her  three  children  and  out- 
raged by  three  Greeks.  She  never  saw  her  children  again.  Another,  Marie 
Teodorova,  also  saw  her  husband  killed  before  her  eyes,  and  then,  dragged  by 
the  hair  to  another  house,  she  was  outraged  by  thirty  Turks.  Two  of  her  three 
children  were  seriously  wounded  and  one  of  them  died  at  Varna.  Sultana  Bala- 
cheva  is  the  old  woman  of  ninety  with  wrinkled  face,  from  the  village  of  Pich- 
man, who  was  outraged  by  five  Turks. 

Here  are  some  extracts  from  secret  Greek  reports  not  intended  for  publica- 
tion which  will  serve  to  show  that  the  same  outrages  repeated  themselves  in  all 
the  countries  in  which  the  Turks  took  the  offensive:  "Yesterday  evening  (July 
4/17)  from  the  first  hour  of  the  night  (i.  e.,  sunset,  alia  Turca)  to  six  o'clock, 
the  Turkish  population  has  invested  the  Greek  village  of  Sildsi-Keui  (Souldja- 
Keui  to  the  northeast  of  Rodosto),  set  fire  to  it  and  massacred  the  whole  village, 
women  and  children  included,  200  families  in  all.  The  catastrophe  was  wit- 


132  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

nessed  by  so  and  so1  *  *  *  No  one  escaped."  Isolated  massacres  of  shep- 
herds and  workers  in  the  fields,  during  the  same  day,  by  Turkish  soldiers  and 
inhabitants,  are  also  mentioned  in  the  villages  of  Simetli,  Karasli  (both  southeast 
of  Rodosto),  Titidjik,  Karadje-Mourate,  Kayadjik,  Akhmetikli,  Omourdje  and 
Mouratli.  On  the  same  day  (July  4/17)  Turkish  soldiers  killed  at  Kolibia  near 
Malgara  the  hegoumenos  (abbot)  of  the  Monastery  of  Iveria,  Eudocimus,  the 
priest  Panayote  and  some  other  persons. 

This  was  but  the  beginning.  Since  the  population  of  the  neighboring  vil- 
lages fled  to  Kolibia  the  Turks  "after  killing  in  the  interior  of  the  church,  burned 
all  the  families  of  the  neighboring  villages  that  had  found  refuge  there"  (report 
on  July  9).  In  Has-Keui,  another  village  near  Malgara,  the  Turks  burned  "a 
considerable  number  of  families."  In  the  same  village  (report  of  July  12)  the 
officer  ordered  the  mouktar  (head  man  of  the  village)  to  procure  him  three  girls 
for  the  night,  "otherwise  you  know  what  will  happen  to  you,"  the  officer  added, 
showing  his  revolver.  The  mouktar  refused  and  bade  the  officer  kill  him  rather 
*  *  *  Then  "the  men  were  shut  up  in  the  church  *  *  *  all  the  women 
were  collected  in  a  spacious  barn  and  the  soldiers  banqueted  for  twenty-four 
hours,  outraging  all  the  women  from  eight  to  seventy-five  years  of  age."  The 
army  took  with  it  quantities  of  young  girls  from  each  village.  At  Kolibia  a  young 
girl,  pursued  by  a  soldier,  fell  from  a  window.  While  her  body  was  still  breath- 
ing the  soldier  assaulted  her. 

The  Greek  report  is  at  pains  to  add :  "The  caimacams  demand  that  a  decla- 
ration be  signed  to  the  effect  that  all  these  infamies  *  *  *  were  committed 
by  the  Bulgarian  army."  The  words  explain  why  in  the  declarations  published 
in  August,  1913,  in  Le  Jeune  Turc,  signed  by  Greeks  and  written  in  the  name 
of  the  population,  the  accusations  against  the  Bulgarians  are  so  numerous.  The 
object  was  in  fact  to  clear  the  Ottoman  troops  of  all  the  crimes  committed.2 

Let  us  add  one  more  report  of  July  9  on  the  events  at  Ahir-Keui  (Aior-Keui 
to  the  east  of  Visa)  which  proves  that  the  same  system  was  applied  over  the 
whole  area  of  the  territories  again  occupied  by  the  Turkish  army:  "Yesterday 
evening,  July  7,  the  police  selected  to  guard  the  inhabitants  of  Ahir-Keui  sepa- 


aSince  all  these  places  have  remained  in  possession  of  the  Turks,  the  necessity  of 
concealing  the  names  of  the  authors  of  the  documents  will  be  understood. 

2For  example,  at  Has-Keui  where  according  to  the  authority  cited  there  were  "a  con- 
siderable number  of  families"  killed  or  burned  by  the  Turks.  The  following  is  the  declara- 
tion of  the  village  notables  presented  to  the  caimacam  of  the  Haivebolou  casa :  "We  deny 
categorically  the  malicious  insinuations  made  against  the  Ottoman  army  and  in  rebutting 
them  protest  against  crimes  such  as  incendiarism  and  assassination  perpetrated  by  the 
Bulgarian  army  in  our  town  at  Has-Keui  and  at  Aktchilar-Zatar  at  the  time  of  the  Bul- 
garian retreat  from  these  places."  Signed  Triandaphilou  and  Yovanaki,  members  of  the 
administrative  council  of  the  casa,  Greek  notables:  Father  Kiriaco,  representing  .the  rnetro- 
politan,  Dimitri,  vicar  of  Has-Keui :  Father  Kiriaki,  priest  of  Has-Keui :  Polioyos,  Greek 
commercial  notability."  See  the  Union  July  24  which  published  in  the  same  number  a 
supplement  entitled  "Acts  of  Bulgarian  Savagery  in  Thrace."  The  member  of  the  Com- 
mission who  visited  another  village  of  the  same  name,-  Has-Keui,  near  Adrianople,  asked 
to  see  Constantinos,  the  priest  of  the  village,  who  also  signed  a  list  equally  long,  of  Bul- 
garian misdeeds  there.  (See  Le  Jeune  Turc,  Sept.  2.)  The  priest  did  not  appear. 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  133 

rated  men,  women  and  children.  All  the  men  they  beat  pitilessly  and  wounded 
many  with  oxgoads;  outraged  the  young  girls  and  women,  giving  themselves  up 
to  libertinism  throughout  the  night." 

In  this  way  this  portion  of  Thrace  was  absolutely  devastated.  The  Greek 
report  of  July  9  states  that  the  Ottoman  army  "massacred,  outraged  and  burned 
all  the  villages  of  the  casas  of  Malgara  and  Airobol.  Nine  hundred  and  seventy 
families  from  the  casa  Malgara  and  690  from  the  casa  Airobol,  i.  e.,  a  population 
of  15,960  persons,  have  been  either  killed  or  burned  in  the  houses  or  scattered 
among  the  mountains."  If  this  be  regarded  as  an  example  of  the  exaggeration 
not  uncommon  in  Greek  sources,  confirmation  rnay  be  adduced  from  a  Catholic 
paper.1  "A  commissionaire  who  came  from  Malgara  and  arrived  yesterday, 
August  23,  at  Adrianople,  assures  us  that  the  whole  number  of  villages  burned 
or  wholly  destroyed  round  Malgara  is  not  less  than  forty-five.  He  stated  that 
he  smelt  the  intolerable  stench  of  many  corpses  as  he  crossed  the  fields  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Kechane."  A  month  after  this  deposition  the  member  of  the 
Commission  who  went  to  Constantinople  heard  there  the  story  of  a  Greek,  an 
English  subject.  About  a  thousand  Bulgarians,  men,  women  and  children,  were 
still  wandering  in  the  mountains,  whither  they  had  fled  before  the  horrors 
described.  But  they  were  surrounded  by  Ottoman  troops  between  Gallipoli  and 
Kechane  and  exposed  to  every  imaginable  kind  of  suffering.  The  witness  saw 
numbers  of  terrible  scenes  and  took  some  photographs.  Under  his  very  eyes  a 
Turk  opened  the  stomach  of  a  child  of  seven  years  and  cut  it  to  pieces.  The 
witness  is  known  in  Constantinople,  and  it  is  extremely  important  that  his  photo- 
graphs should  not  be  mislaid.  We  might  still  be  ignorant  of  facts  that  have 
come  to  our  knowledge;  the  whole  of  this  persecuted  population  might  have 
remained  there,  wandering  among  the  mountains,  awaiting  the  last  stroke  from 
the  soldiers  who  surrounded  them.  Very  luckily  the  Greeks  made  the  mistake 
of  taking  these  peasants  for  compatriots;  they  received  permission  from  the 
authorities  (who  shared  the  error),  to  lead  them  to  Lampsacus,  at  the  other  side 
of  Gallipoli.  Here  the  missions  concerned  themselves  with  their  lot,  and  the 
Greeks  sent  a  special  steamer  to  bring  them  to  Prinkipo.  Only  then  did  they 
discover  that  they  were  not  Greeks  but  Bulgarians.  They  were  thereupon  driven 
out  into  the  streets.  Thanks  to  the  intervention  of  the  Russian  Embassy  and 
the  aid  of  the  Bulgarian  exarchate  they  were  reembarked  and  sent  back  to  Bul- 
garia. Chief  among  them  were  women  from  Boulgar-Keui,  412  of  whom  were 
seen  by  the  English  at  Varna,  as  their  fellow  villager  reported  when  questioned 
at  Constantinople  by  a  member  of  the  Commission. 

The  space  between  the  frontier  ceded  at  London  (Enos  Midia),  and  the  old 
Bulgarian  frontier  was  traversed  by  the  Turkish  army  in  three  weeks.  The 
soldiers  arrived  with  views  deducible  from  the  facts.  An  Arab  Christian  soldier 
of  the  Gallipoli  army,  of  which  we  have  spoken  above,  when  asked  why  he  had 


lLa  Croix,  August  24-25,  1913. 


134  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

taken  part  in  these  atrocities,  forbidden  by  his  religion,  replied  confidentially  in 
Adrianople,  "I  did  as  the  others  did.  It  was  dangerous  to  do  otherwise.  We 
had  the  order  first  to  pillage  and  burn,  then  kill  all  the  men."  *  *  * 

Exceptions  and  distinctions  were  made  however.  There  was  a  Bulgarian  vil- 
lage, Derviche-Tepe,  situated  near  two  Turkish  villages,  one  of  which  is  called 
Khodjatli.  When  the  Bulgarian  army  approached,  during  the  first  war,  sixty 
Turks  sought  refuge  with  their  Christian  neighbors.  They  were  given  protec- 
tion and  did  not  suffer  from  the  passage  of  the  Bulgarian  soldiers.  Among 
others  there  was  a  rich  cattle  merchant  who  related  the  following  story  at 
Constantinople :  "When  the  Turks  returned  they  had  the  order  not  to  touch  the 
village.  They  said  to  the  peasants:  Be  not  afraid  of  us,  since  you  saved  our 
people;  we  have  a  letter  from  Constantinople  to  leave  you  in  peace."  But  the 
exception  confirms  the  rule.  There  were  also  exceptions  in  the  contrary  sense, 
as  the  history  of  the  village  of  Zalouf  proves.  Zalouf  was  peopled  by  Albanians, 
Greek  in  religion.  The  next  village,  Pavlo-Keui,  was  Bulgaro-Moslem  (pomak). 
During  the  first  war  the  Zaloufians  pillaged  Pavlo-Keui,  and  then  thought  of  bap- 
tizing the  Pavlo-Keuians.  They  called  a  Greek  priest,  Demetrius,  and  he  con- 
verted the  village.  The  Turks,  on  their  return,  not  only  killed  Demetrius;  they 
razed  the  village  to  the  ground.  At  the  same  time  Aslane,  the  neighboring  Chris- 
tian village,  suffered  comparatively  little.  At  Zalouf,  560  persons  were  killed.  On 
taking  the  offensive,  the  Turks  transported  their  habits  of  pillage  across  the  fron- 
tier. Among  the  villages  destroyed  in  Bulgarian  territory  the  Commission  heard 
of  Soudjak,  Kroumovo,  Vakouj,  Lioubimits,  etc.  When  according  to  the  con- 
ditions of  the  treaty  of  peace,  Mustapha  Pasha  had  to  be  handed  back  to  the 
Bulgarians,  the  Turks  destroyed  it  completely,  as  is  shown  by  the  report  of 
Mr.  Alexander  Kirov  of  October  19  (November  1),  which  is  in  the  hands  of 
the  Commission.  Mr.  Kirov  recounts  that  here  too  the  return  of  the  Turks 
during  the  second  war  was  signalized  by  the  massacre  of  the  whole  male  popula- 
tion (eighteen  persons).  The  old  woman,  who  survived  this  appalling  day, 
described  how  they  killed  them  one  by  one  amid  the  laughter  and  approving  cries 
of  the  Moslem  crowd.  The  headsman,  a  certain  Karaghioze  Ali,  varied  the 
mode  of  execution  to  amuse  the  mob.  When  a  young  man  named  Chopov  asked 
to  be  killed  more  quickly,  that  he  might  not  see  such  appalling  scenes,  Karaghioze 
Ali,  smoking  his  cigarette,  replied:  "Be  patient,  my  child;  your  turn  is  coming," 
and  he  killed  him  last.  The  old  schoolmaster,  Vaglarov,  seventy  years  of  age, 
was  killed  in  the  street,  and  throughout  the  day  his  head  was  carried  by  the  beard 
from  quarter  to  quarter.  The  mother  of  the  writer  of  the  report  was  killed  on  July 
13/26,  and  thrown  down  a  well.  In  the  courtyard  a  portion  of  her  hair,  torn 
off  with  the  skin,  and  her  bloodstained  garments,  were  found. 

In  Western  Thrace  traveling  was  impossible  during  the  Commission's  stay. 
Those  places  assigned  to  Bulgaria  by  the  treaty  of  Bucharest,  were  inhabited 
equally  by  Greeks  and  Turks.  After  the  departure  of  the  Bulgarian  army  on 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  135 

July  9  and  10  (July  22  and  23),  the  country  was  occupied  by  the  Greek  army 
and  the  population  little  disturbed,  "probably  thanks  to  the  nomination  of  a 
European  Commission  of  Inquiry"  (i.  e.,  the  Carnegie  Commission),  in  the  view 
of  a  Bulgarian  journal,  Izgreve.  After  its  departure,  however,  September  6/19, 
up  to  the  time  of  the  definitive  arrival  of  the  Bulgarian  army,  the  population  was 
entirely  in  the  power  of  the  republican  militia,  i.  e.,  of  the  Greek  andartes  and 
Moslem  bashi-basouks,  grouped  by  the  priests,  schoolmasters  and  secretaries  of 
the  Greek  metropolitans  (bishops).  The  Bulgarian  population,  expecting  no 
good  at  the  hands  of  this  militia,  was  panic  struck  and  threw  themselves  on  all 
sides  into  Dede-Agatch,  where  there  were  still  some  Greek  regulars.  But  the 
military  authorities  did  not  permit  them  to  enter  the  town,  and  the  crowd  of 
15,000  refugees  were  stationed  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  distance  off,  in  the  Bulga- 
rian quarter  and  barracks.  On  September  19,  the  last  Greek  troops  left  Dede- 
Agatch  with  the  steamer,  and  the  Greek  Metropolitan  advised  the  Moslem  volun- 
teers of  their  departure.  This  is  why  the  refugees,  with  the  exception  of  about 
a  hundred,  had  no  time  to  seek  shelter  in  the  town.  They  were  discovered  by  the 
bashi-basouks  "of  the  militia,  and  led  to  Tere  and  Ipsala  like  flocks  of  sheep." 
They  passed  the  night  at  Ouroumdjik,  where  their  money  was  taken  from  them 
and  the  schoolmaster  from  Katviakov,  with  his  wife  from  Baly-Keuii,  were  mas- 
sacred. On  the  morning  of  September  23,  they  met  upon  their  way  a  company 
of  Bulgarian  volunteers,  who  delivered  the  larger  part  of  the  refugees  from  the 
bashi-basouks.  But  during  the  retreat,  the  bashi-basouks  succeeded  in  mas- 
sacring about  one  hundred  women  and  children  who  had  remained  behind  with 
the  baggage,  and  they  took  away  100-150  women  and  children.  The  rest  took  the 
road  for  Bulgaria  with  their  liberators.  But  on  the  morrow,  September  24, 
there  was  another  encounter  with  the  bashi-basouks,  near  the  village  of  Pick- 
man-Keui.  In  this  encounter  500  were  slain  and  200  women  and  children  made 
prisoners.  Newcomers  had  raised  the  total  to  8,000.  At  the  river  Arda 
new  slaughter  awaited  them.  After  the  crossing  they  counted  again  and  were 
but  7,200. 

The  lot  of  those  who  remained  at  Dede-Agatch  was  no  better.  A  public 
crier  shouted  on  several  successive  days  the  orders  for  the  Bulgarians  to  quit  the 
town;  recalcitrants  and  those  harboring  them,  to  be  punished  like  dogs.  The 
frightened  Greeks  filled  several  wagons  with  Bulgarians  and  sent  them  to  Bul- 
garia. On  their  way  they  saw  two  wagons  full  of  Bulgarian  women  and  children 
at  the  station  at  Bitikili,  and  two  other  wagons  at  the  station  at  Soffli.  The 
number  of  Bulgarian  villages  burned  in  Western  Thrace  amounts  to  twenty-two 
and  the  massacred  population  to  many  thousands. 

3.    THE  THEATER  OF  THE  SERVIAN-BULGARIAN  WAR 

In  the  Appendix  will  be  found  a  selection  of  the  documents  on  which  this 
part  of  the  report  is  based.  In  Servia,  of  course  the  Commission  was  not 


",136  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

accepted  by  the  government  and  it  was  therefore  compelled  to  rely  on  its  own 
resources  to  prove  the  Servian  thesis  of  the  "Bulgarian  atrocities."  Nevertheless 
the  documents  contained  in  the  English  translation  are  official:  the  Commission 
obtained  them  by  purchase  from  an  intermediary.1  If  the  conclusion  were  allow- 
able that,  enough  having  been  done  to  satisfy  public  opinion,  the  Servian  Govern- 
ment was  not  displeased  in  at  least  allowing  information  to  reach  us,  the 
Committee  would  rejoice  thereat  while  regretting  the  attitude  which  Mr.  Pachitch 
found  it  necessary  to  adopt  in  regard  to  the  Commission.  In  the  documents,  we 
have  kept  whatever  seemed  to  be  first-hand  information,  what  seemed  to  us 
trustworthy  and  contained  no  glaring  exaggeration.  It  will  be  seen  that  the 
documents  become  the  more  convincing  in  consequence.  They  are.  for  the  most 
part,  official  reports  sent  by  the  head  of  the  General  Staff  of  the  different  armies 
to  the  General  Staff  at  Uskub,  in  response  to  an  order  from  the  latter  dated 
June  20/July  3,  No.  7669.  ("In  accordance  with  the  order  of  the  General  Staff 
No.  7669  of  the  20th  inst,"  a  phrase  appearing  at  the  head  of  many  of  the 
documents  which  we  have  omitted,  in  abridging  them  for  publication.)  Thus  at 
the  beginning  of  the  war  the  Servian  government  took  the  steps  necessary  to 
secure  that  no  single  instance  of  "atrocities"  committed  by  the  Bulgarian  soldiery 
should  remain  unknown  to  international  public  opinion.  Unluckily  for  itself  the 
Bulgarian  government  took  no  general  step  of  an  analogous  kind,  so  that  our  data 
as  to  crimes  of  this  order  are  necessarily  incomplete. 

By  way  of  compensation  we  have,  on  the  Bulgarian  side,  information  of 
another  kind  presented  spontaneously,  so  to  speak,  and  recorded  on  his  private 
initiative  by  Professor  Miletits,  in  the  depositions  of  eye  witnesses  of  the  destruc- 
tion of  Bulgarian  villages  during  the  Servian  offensive.  The  refugees  from  the 
villages  concerned  were  interrogated  when  they  crossed  the  border,  at  Kustendil, 
on  the  state  of  things  they  had  left  behind  them.  We  publish  these  among  those 
depositions  which  refer  to  villages  situated  along  the  conventional  boundary  of 
the  rivers  Zletovska,  Bregalnitsa  and  Lakavitsa,  i.  e.,  the  boundary  agreed  upon 
by  the  two  armies  before  the  opening  of  hostilities.  In  the  originals  (trans- 
mitted to  us  in  a  French  translation)  the  names  of  the  witnesses, — eye  witnesses 
in  every  case, — are  given.  Since  the  territories  in  question  are  actually  Servian 
and  the  population  has  in  part  returned  thither,  we  have  thought  it  more  prudent 
not  to  publish  the  names. 

Concerning  the  regions  round  the  old  Serbo-Bulgarian  frontier,  the  Com- 
mission has  in  its  possession  documents  of  two  kinds.  On  the  Servian  side,  since 
the  Commission  was  unable  to  carry  out  their  intention  of  going  to  Knjazevac 


have  not  seen  the  book  announced  by  the  Serbische  Correspondent  of  November 
28/December  11,  which  appeared  in  Belgrade  (publication  of  the  Servian  Journalisten 
Vereiri)  in  English  on  the  "Bulgarian  atrocities,"  but  the  summary  of  the  contents  does 
not  speak  of  official  documents,  which  constitute  the  most  important  and  only  authentic 
source;  and  some  of  the  photographs  mentioned  also  appeared  in  a  recent  book  by  Mr.  de 
Penennrun,  "Quarante  jours  de  guerre." 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  137 

they  had  to  be  content  with  the  receipt  of  the  documents  here  published.  On 
the  Bulgarian  side,  the  Commission  actually  visited  the  neighborhood  of  Vidine, 
which  had  suffered  Servian  invasion. 

Examining  first  the  country  which  ultimately  became  the  theater  of  the  war, 
the  regions  situated  near  the  ancient  Serbo-Bulgarian  frontier,  the  Commission 
admits  that  the  two  reports  published  on  the  ravages  produced  by  the  Bulgarian 
invasion  at  Knjazevac, — the  Servian  official  report  and  the  Russian  report,  are 
entirely  convincing.  In  Mr.  de  Penennrun's  book  (p.  292)  there  is  a  photograph 
showing  the  room  of  a  Servian  doctor  pillaged  by  the  Bulgarians  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Knjazevac.  Comparing  this  with  the  descriptions  given  by  the  prefect  of 
the  Timok  department,  Mr.  Popovits  (see  Appendix  H,  3),  the  accuracy  of  the 
latter  is  striking.  Yet  the  first  impression  of  the  Russian  witness,  Mr.  Kapous- 
tine,  on  arriving  at  Knjazevac,  was  that  of  being  in  a  town  in  its  normal  con- 
dition; and  Mr.  Popovits  confirms  this  when  he  says  that  only  isolated  houses 
and  shops  were  burned;  twenty-six  belonging  to  twenty  owners.  When  how- 
ever the  houses  and  shops  which  appeared  in  a  good  state  of  preservation  were 
entered,  there  is  unanimous  agreement  (Mr.  Popovits  visited  fifty  and  Mr. 
Kapoustine  100)  in  the  sad  admission  of  complete  destruction.  "It  is  not  a  case 
of  mere  pillage,"  says  Mr.  Kapoustine,  "it  is  something  worse;  something  stupe- 
fying." "One  was  absolutely  dumbfounded,"  Mr.  Popovits  adds,  "by  the  reflec- 
tion that  all  that  could  have  been  done  in  so  short  a  time,  when  there  were,  as 
the  inhabitants  assured  me,  only  10,000  soldiers."  In  fact,  the  pillagers  were  not 
content  with  carrying  off  the  things  of  which  they  could  make  some  use.  What 
one  might  call  a  fury  of  gratuitous  destruction  seems  to  have  led  the  destroyers 
on.  They  must  have  been  drunk  to  behave  as  they  did.  Whatever  could  not 
be  carried  off  was  spoiled;  the  furniture  was  destroyed,  jam  thrown  into  the 
water-closets,  petrol  poured  upon  the  floor,  etc. 

In  the  environs  it  was  still  worse.  The  peasants  told  Mr.  Kapoustine  that 
the  Bulgarian  soldiers  went  through  the  villages  in  groups  of  fifteen  or  twenty, 
pillaging  houses,  stealing  money  and  outraging  women.  Mr.  Kapoustine  did  not 
succeed  in  tracing  the  outraged  women.  But  as  the  Commission  knows  from 
personal  experience,  the  difficulty  of  conducting  an  inquiry  of  this  nature,  espe- 
cially when  the  women  go  on  living  in  the  villages,  they  could  not  feel  justified 
in  rejecting  the  testimony  of  inhabitants  who  know  that  "in  the  village  of  Bou- 
linovats  seven  women  were  outraged,  two  among  them  being  sixteen  years  old; 
at  Vina  nine  women,  one  of  whom  was  pregnant;  at  Slatina,  five,  one  of  whom 
was  only  thirteen." 

Turning  from  this  to  the  impressions  actually  gained  by  the  Commission 
in  Bulgarian  territory,  it  must  be  admitted  that  it  is  unfortunately  true  that  the 
same  methods  were  employed  by  the  Servian  invaders  towards  the  Bulgarian 
population.  Let  us  begin  however  by  saying  that  we  have  seen  homage  rendered 
to  the  superiority  of  the  Servian  command  in  the  Bulgarian  press  itself.  A 


138  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

correspondent  of  the  Bulgarian  paper  Narodna  Volia  felt  constrained  to  admit 
that  "to  the  honor  of  the  Servian  military  authorities,"  there  were  in  the  village 
of  Belogradtchik,  occupied  by  the  Servians  on  July  9/22,  "few  excesses  or  thefts 
committed  by  the  army.  Such  as  there  were  took  place  in  the  course  of  the 
first  day  and  remained  secret.  The  houses  and  the  shops,  where  there  was 
nobody,  were  ravaged.  But  on  complaints  being  made  by  the  citizens,  the  guilty 
soldiers  were  punished.  The  commandant,  Mr.  T.  Stankovits,  from  Niche,  a 
deputy  in  the  Skupshtina,  showed  himself  resolute  in  preserving  order  and  stop- 
ping any  attempts  at  crime."  The  same  can  not  be  said  of  the  Bulgarian  military 
authorities  in  the  Knjazevac  affair,  on  the  admission  of  Bulgarians  themselves, 
collected  by  the  Commission. 

But  with  this  single  exception  the  procedure  in  the  one  case  was  the  same 
as  in  the  other ;  another  Servian  socialist  paper,  the  Radnitchke  N ovine,  admitted 
it  franklyc  It  was  in  the  villages  that  the  population  suffered  most.  "Quanti- 
ties of  people,"  the  Narodna  Volia  continues,  "were  forced  to  hand  over  their 
money.  In  the  villages  of  Kaloughere  and  Bela  the  gallows  are  still  standing 
by  which  the  Servian  "committees"  terrorized  their  victims.  On  the  "commit- 
tees" there  was  even  a  priest.  Whole  flocks  of  sheep,  goats,  pigs,  oxen  and 
horses  were  lifted.  All  the  seeds  that  could  be  discerned  were  dug  up.  All 
the  clothes  and  all  the  furniture  were  taken.  The  Bulgarian  villages  near  the 
frontier  naturally  suffered  most.  Whole  caravans  came  and  went  full  of  booty. 
The  Radnitchke  Novine  speaks  of  "heaps  of  merchandise  and  booty  taken  to 
Zayechare  and  sold  there.  Also  no  small  number  of  women  were  violated."  The 
Commission  can  authenticate  the  truth  of  the  statements  in  these  papers  by 
what  was  heard  and  seen  at  Vidia  and  in  the  neighborhood.  Before  leaving  the 
Balkans  a  whole  day  was  spent  in  visiting  the  village  of  Voinitsa,  and  taking 
photographs  there. 

This  village,  in  the  Koula  canton,  comprised  sixty-three  houses ;  thirty-two 
were  totally  burned  and  the  rest  plundered  and  ruined.  The  Commission  sum- 
moned some  of  the  old  men  who  had  remained  in  the  village  after  the  arrival 
of  the  Servian  troops.  One  of  these  old  men,  "Uncle"  Nicholas,  aged  eighty, 
was  killed  in  his  house  and  his  corpse  covered  with  stones ;  the  Commission 
photographed  his  tomb,  where  a  simple  wooden  cross  is  to  be  seen.  Another 
old  man,  "Uncle"  Dragane,  aged .  seventy,  was  also  killed.  A  third,  Peter 
Jouliov,  aged  seventy-three,  had  the  idea  of  going  up  to  the  Servians  with  bread 
and  raki  (brandy)  in  his  hands.  For  only  reply  one  soldier  ran  him  through 
with  his  bayonet  and  two  others  fired  on  him.  "You  have  killed  me,  brothers," 
he  cried  as  he  fell.  When  the  soldiers  went,  he  crawled  on  his  stomach  some 
yards,  to  the  nearest  shelter.  There  for  two  days  and  two  nights  he  lay  in 
hiding  in  the  forest  without  eating.  His  wounded  foot  was  swollen  and  he  had 
found  no  means  of  dressing  it  in  the  village  of  Boukovtse.  At  last  on  the  ninth 
day  he  reached  the  Servian  ambulance.  The  doctor  made  a  dressing  for  him 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  139 

and  the  old  man  thanked  him  and  gave  him  six  apples.  "You  do  not  belong  to 
this  place,  I  see,"  said  the  doctor,  "since  no  one  but  you  has  given  me  anything. 
You  are  a  man  of  God;  thank  you."  Peter  Jouliov  himself  told  the  Commis- 
sion this  simple  and  touching  story. 

At  Vomitsa  there  were  also  some  old  women  who  suffered.  Three  of  them 
were  killed:  Yotova  Mikova,  aged  seventy;  Seba  Cheorgova,  seventy-five, 
and  Kamenka  Djonova.  A  witness,  repeatedly  beaten  by  the  Servians  who 
asked  him  why  the  population  had  fled,  saw  them  set  fire  to  the  houses ;  only  one 
was  saved,  and  on  it  some  one  had  scrawled  in  chalk  the  word  Magatsine,  to 
show  that  it  was  a  food  depot.  Other  witnesses  saw  the  soldiers  carrying  off 
stolen  furniture,  carpets,  woolen  stuff  prepared  for  carpet  making,  etc.  Some 
peasants  who  thought  that  we  were  a  government  commission,  sent  to  inventory 
their  losses,  brought  us  long  lists  of  them.  Here  are  some  of  the  papers  which 
we  kept  for  information,  after  explaining  to  the  villagers  the  mistake  they  made : 

HOUSE  OF  TANO  STAMENOV 

1.  Woodwork  18  x  10  met.  19  windows,   14  doors fr.  12,000 

2.  Light   woodwork   16  x  8    2,000 

3.  A  wine  cask    200 

4.  Miscellaneous    (3   badne)    150 

5.  Four   barrels    50 

6.  A    German   plow    75 

7.  A    caldron    • 400 

8.  A  machine,  called  tarabi   500 

9.  A   maize  grinder    95 


Total    15,470 

PROPERTY  OF  JOHN  TANOV 

1.  Maize  300  crinas1    f r.         600 

2.  Two  oxen,  with  cart   1,000 

3.  Grain,  30  crinas   80 

4.  A  vat  of  600  okas2    80 

5.  A  barn  6x2  met 50 

6.  A    plow    40 

7.  Four  big  baskets    (kochla)    50 

8.  Wool    (45   okas)    100 

9.  Three    stoves     100 

10.  Two    beds    40 

11.  Six   pigs   and  3  porkers    200 

12.  Eighty    hens     80 

13.  Haricots — 10    crinas    60 

14.  Wine,  20  k 50 

15.  Two   hives    35 

16.  A  kitchen  garden  \l/2   dec 100 

17.  Three   tables    40 

18.  Other  indecipherable  household  goods  448 


Total  3,153 

The  property  of  another  son,  Alexander  Tanov,  fr.  900. 


1About  a  bushel. 

2Weight  about   1,280  grams. 


140;  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

From  the  losses  here  sustained  by  a  single  family, — father  and  two  sons, 
amounting  to  fr.  19,500  (and  the  prices  are  not  overstated,  so  we  were  assured 
by  the  inhabitants  of  Vidine),  some  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  enormous  figures 
of  the  estimated  cost  of  the  Balkan  War  to  the  inhabitants.  The  loss  caused 
the  Servian  peasants  by  the  Bulgarian  invasions  at  Knjazevac  is  rated  in  the 
document  we  publish  at  fr.  25,000,000  or  30,000,000.  No  one,  as  far  as  we  are 
aware,  has  tried  to  estimate  the  loss  caused  the  Bulgarian  peasants  at  Belo- 
gradtchik  and  Vidine  by  the  Servian  invasion. 

In  the  principal  area  of  military  operations,  in  the  canton  of  Kratovo, 
Kotchani,  Tikveche,  Radovitch,  excesses  are  naturally  to  be  expected  of  a  dif- 
ferent order  from  those  due  to  military  incursions  on  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  fron- 
tier. Here  were  two  armies  face  to  face  for  months  at  a  short  distance  from  one 
another.  Each  accused  the  other  of  provocation  and  acts  of  bad  faith.  The 
Bulgarians  thought  they  were  sure  to  defeat  the  old  ally  and  new  enemy  at  the 
first  encounter.  The  Servians  rejoiced  in  advance  in  the  opportunity  of  restoring 
Servia's  military  reputation  and  revenging  the  defeats  of  1885.  Each  side  saw 
in  the  issue  of  the  conflict  the  solution  of  difficulties  that  were,  from  the  national 
standpoint,  questions  of  life  and  death.  The  conflict  over,  the  one  side  said, 
"We  are  not  vanquished,"  and  the  other,  after  securing  the  price  of  victory, 
declared,  "For  the  first  time  we  have  really  fought ;  here  are  adversaries  worthy 
of  us."  "Yes,"  Mr.  de  Penennrun  agrees  after  seeing  the  two  armies,  "From 
the  beginning  this  great  war  was  -savage,  passionate.  Both  sides  are  rude  men 
and  knowing  them  as  I  know  them  I  have  the  right  to  say  that  they  are  adver- 
saries worthy  of  one  another."1 

The  "savage  war"  opened  in  a  way  that  was  savage  in  the  highest  degree. 
The  first  shock  was  peculiarly  cruel  and  sanguinary;  it  was  to  decide  the  fate 
of  the  campaign.  The  general  staff  of  the  voyevoda  (Poutnik)  (commander-in- 
chief),  puts  the  losses  of  the  two  Servian  armies  during  the  one  night  attack 
(June  16/29  to  17/30)  at  3,200  men ;  almost  all  the  men  who  fell  were  slain  by 
bayonet  or  musket  blows,  even  after  surrender.  Mr.  de  Penennrun,  who  makes 
this  statement,  goes  so  far  as  to  suppose  that  this  Bulgarian  fury  was  intentional 
and  decreed  by  the  commandant,  who  saw  in  it  a  means  of  striking  terror  and  so 
of  victory.  According  to  him,  the  "atrocities  were  almost  always  enjoined  by 
the  officers  on  their  men,  who,  despite  their  native  harshness,  hesitated  to  strike 
other  Slavs,  but  yesterday  their  brothers  in  arms."  The  spirit  of  Mr.  Savov's 
telegram  already  known  to  us  seems  to  confirm  this  supposition,  since  it  enjoins 
the  commandant  to  "stir  up  the  morale  of  the  army,"  and  teach  it  to  "look 
upon  the  allies  of  yesterday  as  enemies."  However  that  may  be,  the  Servian 
documents  we  publish  bearing  almost  exclusively  on  these  first  days  of  the  war,. 
June  17-19  to  25,  do  prove  abundantly  that  this  end  was  attained  and  much* 
exceeded. 


*Quarante  jours  de  guerre  dans  les  Balkans.     Chapelot,  Paris,  1913,  pp.  39-40,  183. 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  141 

The  reader's  attention  is  drawn  in  the  first  instance  to  documents  1,  3,  7,  10 
(Appendix  H).  Here  we  have  soldiers  miraculously  surviving  from  fights  in 
which  they  were  wounded,  after  enduring  the  same  sufferings  as  their  comrades 
who  lie  dead  on  the  field  of  battle.  They  can  recount  the  treatment  inflicted  by 
the  Bulgarians  on  the  wounded,  and  when  they  do  so  they  speak  as  victims.  The 
Bulgarian  soldier's  first  movement  was  always  the  same, — to  steal  the  money 
and  valuables  on  the  body  which  would  soon  be  a  corpse.  After  stripping  the 
wounded  man,  the  second  movement, — the  intoxication  of  combat  being  some- 
what dissipated, — was  not  always  the  same.  Should  he  be  killed  or  no?  Captain 
Gyurits  (Appendix  H,  2)  tells  us  that  he  heard  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  discussing 
the  question  among  themselves,  and  that  massacre  was  decided  on  by  the  officer. 
Lieutenant  Stoyanovits  tells  us  that  the  men,  after  pillaging  him,  prepared  to 
go  off ;  but  one  of  them  reminded  the  others  that  there  was  still  something  to  do, 
and  then  two  of  the  soldiers  ran  him  through  with  their  bayonets,  and  the  third 
struck  him  with  the  butt  end,  but  without  killing  him.  Lieutenant  Markovits 
survived,  after  being  pillaged,  because  the  Bulgarian  sanitary  staff  who  had 
stripped  him  of  his  valuables  did  not  want  the  trouble  either  of  killing  him  or 
conveying  him  to  hospital,  as  he  asked  them  to  do;  instead  they  left  him  lying 
in  the  forest  for  three  days  until,  on  June  19,  he  was  found  there.  Prisoners 
who  were  not  wounded  were  pillaged  likewise,  and  then  kept  with  a  view  to 
extracting  information  from  them  (case  of  Lioubomir  Spasits,  Appendix  H,  3) 
or  let  go  and  then  fired  on  (Miloshevits,  Appendix  H,  4  (c)).  There  were  cases 
however  in  which  those  who  had  money  to  offer  were  set  free  while  those  who 
had  none  had  their  throats  cut.  Cases  were  also  quoted  of  whole  bodies  of 
prisoners  being  shot  after  capture.  On  the  other  hand  a  case  is  mentioned  in 
which  some  wounded  prisoners  not  only  were  taken  to  the  Bulgarian  hospital  but 
made  their  escape,  after  they  were  restored  to  health,  through  the  complicity  of 
a  Bulgarian  sergeant  (Appendix  I,  4  (c)  ). 

All  this  naturally  refers  only  to  cases  in  which  the  men  were  able  to  delib- 
erate and  choose.  The  horrors  of  battle  itself,  during  which  men  were  actuated 
and  dominated  solely  by  its  fury,  were  appalling  and  almost  incredible.  The 
most  ordinary  case  is  that  described  in  full  detail  in  the  two  medical  reports  we 
publish.  The  profound  impression  produced  by  the  death  of  Colonel  Arandjelo- 
vits,  who  was  killed  during  the  retreat  of  July  8/21,  and  whose  death  is  described 
in  the  first  reports,  is  largely  due  to  the  personality  of  the  victim,  an  officer 
known  and  loved  by  everyone,  and  decorated  by  King  Ferdinand  for  his  share 
in  the  siege  of  Adrianople.  The  scientific  facts  were  that  the  colonel,  grievously 
wounded  but  still  alive,  was  finished  by  a  discharge  in  the  back  of  his  neck  and 
a  bayonet  thrust  at  his  heart.1  The  nine  soldiers  killed  during  the  engagement 
of  July  9/22,  perished  in  the  same  way,  as  the  second  report  shows.  They  were 
wounded,  more  or  less  seriously,  by  bullets  from  a  distance;  then  finished  by 


photograph  of  Mr.  Arandjelovits  in  Mr.  de  Penennrun's  book,  p.  292. 


142  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

violent  blows  on  the  head  delivered  close  at  hand  with  the  butt  end  or  bayonet, 
or  by  a  discharge.  There  are  quantities  of  instances  of  wounded  Servian  sol- 
diers being  stabbed  to  make  an  end  of  them. 

Worse  still,  killing  did  not  content  them.  They  sought  to  outrage  the  dead 
T>r  even  to  torture  the  living.  Here  we  have  the  really  savage  and  barbarous 
side  of  the  second  war.  Some  of  the  cases  may  have  been  exaggerated  or 
inexactly  reported.  But  they  are  so  numerous  that  the  agreement  of  the  wit- 
nesses alone  proves  their  authenticity.  We  will  set  them  down  in  the  order  in 
which  they  appear  in  the  documents,  as  indicated: 

1.  In  the  fight  that  took  place  near  Trogartsi,  Servian  corpses  were  found 
with  mutilated  parts  stuck  in  their  mouths. 

2.  In  the  fight  of  June  17  and  18,  Andjelko  Yovits,  still  alive,  had  ears 
and  nose  cut  (H,  I,  2). 

3.  In  the  battle  of  Krivolak,  June  21,  a  Servian  volunteer  had  his  eyes 
gouged  out  (H,  I,  4  (b)  ). 

4.  On  June  21   Zivoin   Miloshevits  and  Bozidar  Savits  had  their  tongues 
cut  out  and  chopped  in  pieces  because  they  had  no  money  to  buy  back  their 
freedom  with  (H,  I,  4  (c)). 

5.  On  June  19  L.  Milosavlevits  saw  the  corpse  of  a  Servian  soldier  with 
his  eyes  gouged  out  (H,  I,  4  (c)). 

6.  Near  the  village  of  Dragovo  a  Servian  corpse  was  fastened  to  a  pillar 
with  iron  bands  and  roasted — seen  by  Corporal  Zivadits  Milits  (H,  I,  4  (c)  ). 

7.  On  June  17  a  Servian  prisoner  was  thrown  up  in  the  air  amid  cries  of 
hurrah!  and  caught  on  bayonets — seen  by  Arsenic  Zivkovits  (H,  I,  4  (c)  ).  The 
same  case  is  described  elsewhere,  near  the  Garvantoi  position. 

8.  On  June  18  a  Servian  soldier  was  put  on  a  spit  and  grilled  (H,  I,  4  (c)). 

9.  On  June  25  Captain  Spira  Tchakovski  saw  the  roasted  corpse  of  a  Ser- 
vian soldier  to  the  north  of  the  village  of  Kara  Hazani  (H,  I,  5). 

10.  Captain  Dimitriye  Tchemirikits  saw  two  roasted  corpses,  one  near  the 
Shobe  Blockhouse,  another  near  the  village  of  Krivolak  (H,  I,  5). 

11.  Mutilated  corpses,  with  hands  and  legs  cut,  have  been  seen  by  the  patrol 
in  various  places  (H,  I,  5). 

12.  On  the  battlefield  mutilated  corpses  are   found.     One  corpse  had  the 
skin  of  the   face  taken  off,  another  the  eyes  gouged  out,  a  third  had  been 
roasted  (H,  I,  6). 

13.  At  the  positions  between   Shobe  and  Toplika,  June  24-25,  mutilated 
corpses  are  found,  some  with  the  eyes  gouged  out,  others  with  ears  and  noses 
cut;  the  mouth  torn  from  ear  to  ear;  disemboweled,  etc.  (H,  I,  6). 

14.  At  the  Tcheska  positions  the  corpse  of  a  Servian  soldier — a  marine  from 
Raduivatz — was  burned  (H,  I,  8). 

15.  At  Nirasli-Tepe,  a  soldier  had 'his  eyes  gouged  out  (H,  I,  9). 

16.  A  Bulgarian  lieutenant  broke  hands  and  crushed  fingers  under  stones; 
evidence  of  Kosta  Petchanats  (H,  I,  9). 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  143 

17.  At  Kalimanska  Tchouka  the  wounded  left  at  the  village  of  Doulitsa 
had  their  noses  and  ears  cut,  eyes  gouged  out  and  hands  cut  off  (H,  III,  7). 

The  Commission  can  find  no  words  strong  enough  to  denounce  such  out- 
rages to  humanity,  and  feels  that  the  widest  measure  of  publicity  should  be 
given  to  all  similar  cases,  indicating  the  names  of  the  culprits  wherever  possible, 
in  order  to  curb  barbaric  instincts  which  the  world  is  unanimous  in  blaming. 

The  Commission  is  not  so  well  provided  with  documentary  evidence  as  to 
the  excesses  which  may  have  taken  place  on  the  side  of  the  Servian  army  during 
the  combat.  Isolated  cases,  however,  confirmed  by  documents  and  by  evidence, 
show  that  the  Servians  were  no  exception  to  the  general  rule.  In  the  Appendix 
will  be  found  a  proces-verbal  taken  by  the  Bulgarian  military  commission,  which 
proves  that  five  Bulgarian  officers,  Colonel  Yanev  (at  the  head  of  the  Sixth 
Cavalry),  Lieutenants  Stefanov  and  Minkov,  veterinary  sub-lieutenant  Contev 
and  Quartermaster  Vladev.  were  massacred.  After  having  been  taken  prisoner 
at  Bossilegrade  on  June  28/July  11,  Colonel  Yanev  was  ordered,  on  pain  of  being 
shot,  to  send  the  Bulgarian  squadrons  the  order  to  give  themselves  up  to  the 
Servians.  He  obeyed,  but  his  orders  were  not  followed.  The  five  officers  were 
then  taken  outside  and  entrusted  to  an  escort  of  ten  Servian  soldiers,  who  then 
shot  them  all,  stripped  off  their  boots  and  plundered  them.  The  sixth,  Doctor 
Koussev,  had  been  wounded  by  a  Servian  soldier  immediately  after  yielding, 
and  this  saved  his  life.  A  Servian  doctor,  Mr.  Mitrovits,  came  to  see  him: 
expressed  his  astonishment  and  regret  at  seeing  him  wounded  and  conducted 
him  to  the  Servian  ambulance,  whence  he  was  conveyed  to  the  Mairie.  The 
precipitate  retreat  of  the  Servians,  who  had  to  abandon  their  own  wounded, 
saved  him.  We  have  seen  his  deposition,  which  confirms  the  proces-verbal. 

The  conduct  of  the  Servians  on  the  battlefield  is  characterized  further  by 
the  deposition  of  a  Bulgarian  officer  in  the  26th,  Mr.  Demetrius  Gheorghiev, 
wounded  near  the  Zletovska  river  during  these  same  days  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war  (June  21/July  4).  His  story  is  as  follows: 

Our  people  had  beaten  a  retreat.  I  crawled  into  the  thicket.  Near-by, 
in  a  clearing,  a  petty  officer  of  the  31st  was  lying  groaning.  I  advised  him 
not  to  groan  for  fear  of  being  discovered.  I  should  have  been  discovered 
likewise.  I  was  right.  A  Servian  patrol  passed,  saw  him  and  killed  him. 
I  was  not  seen,  however;  I  was  hidden  in  a  hollow.  A  little  further  away 
from  me,  at  a  distance  of  three  or  four  hundred  paces,  a  petty  officer  of  the 
13th  lay,  Georges  Poroujanov.  I  saw  the  patrol  discover  and  assassinate 
him  also.  Finally,  on  June  22,  the  Servian  ambulances  appeared.  I  saw 
and  called  to  them.  They  asked  me,  "Have  you  any  money?"  I  had  900 
francs.  I  replied  "Yes."  Then  the  ambulance  men  came  up  to  me.  One 
of  them  took  the  money.  They  thereupon  put  me  on  a  stretcher  and  car- 
ried me  to  the  village  of  Lepopelti. 

The  rest  of  Mr.  Gheorghiev's  story  is  omitted.  After  many  difficulties, 
upon  the  refusal  of  the  Belgrade  doctor,  Mr.  Vasits,  to  attend  to  him  because 


144 


REPORT  OF  THE   BALKAN    COMMISSION 


O 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  145 

he  regarded  him  "as  an  enemy,"  Mr.  Gheorghiev  was  taken  to  the  Russian  mis- 
sion and  there  attended.1 

If  the  information  as  to  the  conduct  of  the  Servian  soldier  on  the  field  of 
battle  does  not  amount  to  much,  our  Bulgarian  documents  call  up  a  sad  enough 
picture  of  the  treatment  they  meted  out  to  the  population  in  the  conquered 
territory. 

Here  again  the  accusations  are  mutual.  We  publish  a  Servian  document 
(Appendix  H,  III)  which  gives  a  general  description  of  the  ravages  produced  in 
the  theater  of  war,  along  the  left  bank  of  the  River  Zletovska  and  the  right 
bank  of  the  Lakavitsa.  The  document  attributes  the  ruin  of  these  villages,  the 
destruction  of  property  and  the  violence  endured  by  the  population,  to  the  Bul- 
garians. This  may  be  admitted  so  far  as  it  concerns  the  Moslem  population, 
who,  according  to  the  document,  fled  before  the  Bulgarians  and  returned  later 
with  the  Servian  army.  But  the  other  portion  of  the  population  was  Bulgarian 
and  it  evidently  can  not  have  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  Bulgarian  army,  except 
in  so  far  as  the  population  inhabiting  the  theater  of  war  must  inevitably  suffer. 
We  know  from  the  Bulgarian  document  we  publish  that  the  opposite  is  the  case, 
at  least  in  case  of  the  villages  whose  names  reappear  in  the  Servian  and  in  the 
Bulgarian  list,  and  in  that  of  quantities  of  others  not  mentioned  by  the  Servians. 
What  we  see  is  the  Bulgarian  population  fleeing  before  the  Servian  army  to 
escape  violence  and  vengeance  at  the  hands  of  the  returning  Turks,  or  awaiting 
their  hour  on  the  spot.  The  evidence  of  the  refugees  is  formal  and  decisive. 
They  were  perhaps  not  sufficiently  removed  from  the  events  to  judge  them  fairly; 
but  their  intimate .  and  profound  knowledge  of  local  conditions  compensates 
for  this. 

Let  us  stop  and  consider  these  depositions  from  peasants,  priests  and  school- 
masters, whose  names  are  known  to  the  Commission.  We  see  everywhere  the 
reappearance  of  the  Servian  army,  giving  the  signal  for  exodus.  It  is  true  that 
the  Servians  sometimes  declare  that  they  are  bringing  with  them  "order  and 
security,"  and  threaten  the  population  with  burning  and  pillage,  only  in  cases 
where  those  who  have  taken  flight  will  not  return.  Some  of  the  more  credulous 
do  return.  What  awaits  them? 

It  must  be  recalled  that  the  Servian  soldiers  do  not  arrive  alone.  They  are 
accompanied  by  people  who  know  the  village  and  their  inhabitants  better.  And 
there  is  Rankovits,  a  Servian  comitadji  turned  officer,  who  had  been  carrying 
on  propaganda  in  favor  of  King  Peter  in  these  same  villages  since  March. 
Then  there  are  the  vlachs  (Wallachians,  Aroumanians)  put  in  charge  of  the 
administration,  because  they  are  ready  to  call  themselves  "brothers  of  the 
Servians,"  on  condition  of  being  allowed  to  enrich  themselves  at  the  expense 
of  the  population.  Their  formula  for  the  Bulgarian  population,  the  most 
numerous,  is  as  follows:  "Up  to  now  you  have  been  our  masters  and  pil- 

1For  the  treatment  of  the  wounded  by  the  Servians,  see  also  Chapter  V. 


146  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

laged  our  goods;  it  is  now  our  turn  to  pillage  yours"  (Appendix  H,  IV).  But 
the  most  important  point  to  notice  is  that  the  Turks  appeared  with  the  Servian 
army,  called  by  them  to  their  aid  and  free  to  pursue  them  when  their  turn  should 
come  (see  Chapter  IV).  The  Turks  had  vengeance  to  enact  for  probable  spolia- 
tion committed  by  the  Bulgarian  army;  and  in  addition  for  forced  conversions 
(Chapter  IV).  This  is  what  happens.  Take  the  village  of  Vinitsa  (given  in 
the  Servian  document  as  having  been  burned  and  ravaged  by  the  Bulgarians, 
"during  their  retreat").  The  Servian  soldiers,  as  soon  as  they  entered,  began 
asking  the  villagers,  "one  after  another,  are  they  Servians  or  Bulgarians?" 
Anyone  replying  "Bulgarian"  is  forcibly  struck.  Then  the  Commander  of  the 
troops  chose  seventy  peasants  and  ordered  them  to  be  shot.  In  other  villages, 
as  we  shall  see,  the  order  was  executed;  here  it  was  recalled  and  the  peasants 
taken  to  Kotchani.  Three  days  after  the  Servian  entry,  the  Bulgarian  army 
returns  (June  27)  and  then  leaves  the  village  again.  It  is  only  then,  after  having 
tried  Servian  "order  and  security,"  that  the  population  "mad  with  terror  at  the 
prospect  of  new  tortures,"  leaves  the  village.  The  old  people,  however,  remain. 
They  are  witnesses  of  the  pillage  of  all  the  shops  and  all  the  houses  of  the 
Servians.  In  the  Appendix  will  be  found  the  names  of  the  persons  killed  and 
tortured  for  the  sake  of  their  money,  and  women  outraged  at  Vinitsa. 

At  Blatets,  the  same  story.  The  Turks  denounce  Bulgarian  "suspects."  An- 
other witness  says,  they  point  them  out  "as  being  rich."  Some  twenty  are 
imprisoned;  a  boy's  eyes  gouged  out  to  make  him  say  where  there  is  money. 
Another  is  thrown  into  the  fire  for  the  same  reason ;  whole  quarters  are  pillaged 
and  burned.  Then  the  suspects  are  led  away  from  the  village.  The  officer  cries 
"Escape  who  can!"  The  soldiers  fire  on  the  fugitives  and  bring  them  all  down. 
At  Bezikovo  some  twenty  dead  are  noted,  a  child  a  year  and  a  half  old  burned 
alive,  three  women  outraged,  two  of  them  dying.  Sixty  houses  are  burned  and 
the  harvest  also,  and  the  stock  carried  off.  In  the  village  of  Gradets,  where  the 
Servian  cavalry  promises  "order  and  security,"  only  a  few  old  men  are  left  and 
go  to  meet  the  soldiery.  On  hearing  the  promises,  fifty  to  sixty  peasants,  who 
believe  in  them,  return.  Then  by  express  order  the  Turks  throw  themselves 
on  the  houses;  between  sixty  and  seventy  men  are  seized,  led  outside  the  village 
and  there  stabbed  amid  the  despairing  cries  of  the  women  who  followed  their 
husbands.  The  Turks  want  their  share;  they  take  three  picked  young  girls 
and  carry  them  off  to  their  village  with  songs  and  cries.  The  next  day  the 
village  is  in  flames.  A  day  later  the  chase  of  the  fugitives  begins. 

Some  300  went  forth;  only  nine  families  reach  Kustendil.  The  others  are 
killed  or  dispersed.  "The  Servian  bullets  rained  down  like  hail;"  men,  women, 
children  fell  dead.  In  the  village  of  Loubnitsa  the  Servian  soldiers  asked  the 
wife  of  a  certain  Todor  Kamtchev  for  money.  As  she  had  none,  they  stabbed 
a  child  of  four  years  old  in  her  arms. 

At  Radovitch,  a  town,  pillage  is  the  rule.    Under  pretext  of  gifts  for  the 


BULGARIANS,  TURKS  AND  SERVIANS  147 

Red  Cross  the  peasants  paid  fifteen,  thirty,  forty-five  Napoleons,  to  escape  the 
tortures  awaiting  them.  The  guide  who  points  out  the  "rich  men"  here  is  Cap- 
tain Yaa,  an  Albanian,  a  former  servant  in  the  Servian  agency  at  Veles,  now 
head  of  a  band  protected  by  the  military  government.  Our  witness  concludes: 
"At  Radovitch  the  Servian  officers  collected  a  lot  of  money."  In  the  surround- 
ing villages  too  "a  great  deal  of  money  was  extorted."  The  Servians  undressed 
and  searched  a  woman  for  money :  then  outraged  her  at  Chipkovitsa.  At  Novo- 
Selo  the  women  fled  into  the  forest ;  but  the  men  who  remained  were  plundered. 
At  Orahovitsa,  a  Turkish  local  magnate  from  Radovitch  wants  to  have  his  share. 
He  arrives,  accompanied  by  Servian  soldiers,  and  once  more  money  is  extorted 
from  the  women  by  burning  their  fingers ;  and  arms  are  carried  off. 

These  are  fragments  of  the  dismal  annals  of  these  days  at  the  end  of  June 
(old  style)  in  a  small  territory  which  afterwards  became  the  property  of  the 
invading  state.  "Order"  of  a  kind  is  restored,  the  conquest  once  accomplished, 
and  some  of  the  refugees  have  returned  to  their  villages.  We  shall  have  further 
opportunity  of  returning  to  the  "order"  similarly  established  in  the  annexed  ter- 
ritories. For  the  moment  we  add  one  observation.  The  things  we  have  de- 
scribed, horrible  as  they  are,  show  in  their  very  horror  abnormal  conditions 
which  can  not  last.  Fortunately  for  humanity,  nature  herself  revolts  against 
"excesses"  such  as  we  have  observed  in  the  conflict  of  two  adversaries.  In 
blackening  the  face  of  the  other  each  has  tarred  his  own.  After  judging  them 
on  their  own  evidence,  we  have  to  remember  that  in  ordinary  times  they  are 
better  than  the  judgment  each  is  inclined  to  pass  on  the  other  and  to  impose 
upon  us. 


CHAPTER     IV 


The  War  and  the  Nationalities 

1.     EXTERMINATION,  EMIGRATION,  ASSIMILATION 

The  reader  who  has  perused  the  preceding  pages  and  followed  the  endless 
chain  of  deplorable  events  studied  and  described  by  the  Commission,  has  doubt- 
less discovered  the  common  feature  which  unites  the  Balkan  nations,  though  it  is 
necessary  to  discover  that  war  is  waged  not  only  by  the  armies  but  by  the  nations 
themselves.  The  local  population  is  divided  into  as  many  fragmentary  parts  as 
it  contains  nationalities,  and  these  fight  together,  each  being  desirous  to  substitute 
itself  for  the  others.  This  is  why  these  wars  are  so  sanguinary,  why  they  pro- 
duce so  great  a  loss  in  men,  and  end  in  the  annihilation  of  the  population  and 
the  ruin  of  whole  regions.  We  have  repeatedly  been  able  to  show  that  the  worst 
atrocities  were  not  due  to  the  excesses  of  the  regular  soldiery,  nor  can  they 
always  be  laid  to  the  charge  of  the  volunteers,  the  bashi-bazoiik.1  The  popula- 
tions mutually  slaughtered  and  pursued  with  a  ferocity  heightened  by  mutual 
knowledge  and  the  old  hatreds  and  resentments  they  cherished. 

The  first  consequence  of  this  fact  is,  that  the  object  of  these  armed  conflicts, 
overt  or  covert,  clearly  conceived  or  vaguely  felt,  but  always  and  everywhere  the 
same,  was  the  complete  extermination  of  an  alien  population.  In  some  cases 
this  object  expressed  itself  in  the  form  of  an  implacable  and  categorical  "order" — 
to  kill  the  whole  male  population  of  the  occupied  regions.  We  are  in  possession 
of  some  letters  from  Greek  soldiers,  of  unimpeachable  authenticity.  These 
documents,  though  written  in  our  own  day,  throw  back  to  the  time  of  the  Assyr- 
ian conquest.  "We  have  taken  a  small  number  of  prisoners  and  them  we  have 
killed,  such  being  the  orders  received  *  *  *  in  order  that  the  dirty  Bulga- 
rian race  may  not  spring  up  again"  *  *  *  "We  are," — such  is  the  order, — 
"to  burn  the  villages,  massacre  the  young,  and  spare  none  but  the  old  people, 
children  and  minors."  Here  the  intention  is  clearly  to  spare  none  but  those  no 
longer  capable  of  carrying  on  the  race  and  those  still  young  enough  to  lose  their 
nationality  by  receiving  a  Greek  education. 

It  was  the  same  in  Turkey,  as  we  have  seen  in  describing  the  events  which 
took  place  in  the  environments  of  Malgara  and  in  Thrace  generally.  Men, 
women  and  children  were  separated,  and  all  killed  without  exception.  Here 
the  testimony  of  the  Christian  Arab  soldier  shows  that,  at  least  in  certain  por- 


term  of  dismal  memory  has  taken  on  an  altogether  fresh  significance  during  the 
latest  wars.  A  bashi-basouk  is  no  longer  necessarily  a  Turk.  He  is  the  volunteer,  the  Frei- 
scharler  of  all  the  belligerent  nations  without  distinction ;  the  Bulgarian  comitadji,  the  Greek 
andarte;  generally  speaking  he  is  any  combatant  not  wearing  the  uniform  of  the  regular. 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  149 

tions  of  the  Turkish  army,  when  the  offensive  was  taken,  the  "order"  was  given 
to  proceed  systematically.  It  would  be  too  much  to  assume  that  the  outrages 
committed  on  women  were  the  realization  of  an  "order." 

The  orders  given  to  the  Slav  armies  were  perhaps  a  trifle  less  barbarous. 
It  does  not,  however,  follow  that  there  was  no  intention  of  conquering  the  ter- 
ritory without  maintaining  an  alien  population  there.  "Orders  of  extermination" 
were  not  given,  orders  to  the  contrary  were  indeed  given  [see  below].  But  in 
private  conversations  the  same  idea  is  constantly  met.  What  proves  that  it  was 
not  a  mere  mode  of  speaking,  is  the  fact  that  the  Turkish  population  suffered 
.at  the  hands  of  the  Bulgarians,  and  the  Albanian  population  at  the  hands  of  the 
Servians  as  well.  As  regards  the  Bulgarians,  this  is  proved  by  the  villages  in 
which  all  the  Turkish  quarters  were  burned,  and  which  were  visited  by  the 
member  of  the  Commission  in  Thrace.  As  to  the  Servians,  we  possess  authentic 
evidence  in  the  shape  of  a  letter  from  a  member  of  the  Servian  army,  published 
in  the  Servian  Socialist  paper  Radnitchke  N ovine,  of  October  9/22.  The  con- 
tents of  this  letter  resemble  only  too  closely  the  letters  of  the  Greek  soldiers. 
True,  the  reference  here  is  to  an  expedition  made  to  repress  a  revolt.  "My  dear 
Friend,"  writes  the  soldier.  "I  have  no  time  to  write  to  you  at  length,  but  I 
•can  tell  you  that  appalling  things  are  going  on  here.  I  am  terrified  by  them, 
and  constantly  ask  myself  how  men  can  be  so  barbarous  as  to  commit  such 
•cruelties.  It  is  horrible.  I  dare  not  (even  if  I  had  time,  which  I  have  not) 
tell  you  more,  but  I  may  say  that  Liouma  (an  Albanian  region  along  the  river 
of  the  same  name),  no  longer  exists.  There  is  nothing  but  corpses,  dust  and 
ashes.  There  are  villages  of  100,  150,  200  houses,  where  there  is  no  longer  a 
single  man,  literally  not  one.  We  collect  them  in  bodies  of  forty  to  fifty,  and 
then  we  pierce  them  with  our  bayonets  to  the  last  man.  Pillage  is  going  on 
•everywhere.  The  officers  told  the  soldiers  to  go  to  Prisrend  and  sell  the  things 
they  had  stolen."  The  paper  which  published  this  letter  adds :  "Our  friend 
tells  us  of  things  even  more  appalling  than  this  (  !)  ;  but  they  are  so  horrible  and 
so  heartrending  that  we  prefer  not  to  publish  them." 

The  object  of  the  Albanian  expedition,  referred  to  by  the  correspondent  of 
the  Radnitchke  Novine,  is  known  to  have  been  the  repression  of  the  plans  of  the 
Albanians  who  had  at  this  period  revolted  against  the  Servians.  The  Albanian 
revolt  was  represented  by  the  Servians  as  the  result  of  the  activities  of  the 
Albanians  in  autonomous  Albania,  and  at  the  same  time  of  Bulgarian  conspira- 
cies. These  two  reasons  are  probable  enough,  but  they  do  not  exclude  a  third, — 
the  state  of  mind  of  the  Albanian  population  in  subjection  to  Servia.  This 
population  had  its  own  reasons  for  complaining  of  the  Servian  administration. 
The  event  is  explained  in  a  letter  from  Elbassan,  published  by  a  Bulgarian  paper, 
(L'£cho  de  Bulgarie,  September  2S/October  11),  and  alleged  to  come  "from 
a  very  reliable  source."  The  Commission  was  not  able  to  verify  these  state- 
ments, but  there  are  no  reasons  for  doubting  them,  in  view  of  all  that  has  been 
seen  and  heard : 


150  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

On  September  20  last  (new  style),  the  Servian  army  carried  off  all  the 
cattle  of  the  Malesia  of  Dibra.  The  herdsmen  were  compelled  to  defend 
themselves,  and  to  struggle,  but  they  were  all  killed.  The  Servians  also 
killed  the  two  chieftains  of  the  Liouma  clan,  Mehmed  Edem  and  Djafer 
Eleuz,  and  then  began  pillaging  and  burning  all  the  villages  on  their  way: 
Pechkapia,  Pletza  and  Dochichti,  in  lower  Dibra;  Alai,  Beg,  Machi,  Para, 
Oboku,  Klobotchichta,  and  Solokitzi,  in  upper  Dibra.  In  all  these  villages  the 
Servians  committed  acts  of  horrible  massacre  and  outrage  on  women,  children 
and  old  people.  In  the  town  of  Dibra  itself  the  authorities  published  an 
order  to  the  effect  that  the  bazaar  was  not  to  be  opened  on  Sunday  or  the 
inhabitants  to  come  out  of  their  houses  on  that  day.  Forty-eight  notables 
were  arrested.  When  the  Servians  saw  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  pillaged 
villages,  of  which  a  list  has  been  given  above,  had  come  to  reclaim  their 
cattle  and  were  surrounding  the  town,  they  had  the  notables  brought  out 
of  prison  and  killed  them  in  the  most  shameless  way.  Henceforth  terror 
and  despair  reigned  among  the  Albanians  of  Dibra  and  the  neighborhood, 
and  they  rose  in  revolt.  They  attacked  the  Servians  with  arms,  or  with 
hatchets,  stones  and  sticks ;  they  killed  some  of  them  and  drove  the  rest 
out  of  the  town.  Nearly  all  of  the  men  who  were  killed  were  Servian 
officials;  the  soldiers  who  remained  alive  fled  to  the  other  side  of  the 
Radika  river. 

After  this  story,  the  truth  of  the  general  description  published  by  the  same 
paper  on  October  3/16  need  not  be  doubted:1 

The  following  villages,  with  a  mixed  Albanian  and  Bulgarian  popula- 
tion, were  pillaged  and  burnt — Lochnani,  Lissitchani,  Gitoche,  Dibrichta, 
Harlichte,  Dessovo,  Cradechnitsa,  Ptchelopek.  Many  Moslem  families  from 
these  villages,  including  women  and  children,  were  pitilessly  massacred. 
On  entering  the  village  of  Portchassie,  the  regular  Servian  army  led  all  the 
husbands  outside  the  village,  and  then  brought  the  wives  thither  to  exact 
money  from  them  in  the  shape  of  ransom,  if  they  wanted  their  husbands 
set  at  liberty.  After  the  ransom  had  been  paid,  however,  the  wretched 
men  were  shut  up  in  the  mosque,  which  was  then  blown  up  with  four  shells. 
In  the  village  of  Sulp,  seventy-three  Albanians  suffered  a  horrible  death, 
and  forty-seven  others  from  the  village  of  Ptchelopek  were  basely  assas- 
sinated. Was  it  not  the  Prefect  of  Krouchevo,  when  the  Servian  army 
returned  from  the  Albanian  frontier,  who  openly  told  them  to  burn  all  the 
villages  situated  between  Krouchevo  and  Okhrida? 

Thus  the  Albanian  petitioners,  who  on  September  21  addressed  themselves 
to  the  Great  Powers  in  the  name  of  the  populations  of  Djakova,  Ipek,  Plava, 
Goussinie  and  the  ex-vilayet  of  Kossovo,  did  not  exaggerate  when  they  stated, 
as  regards  this  other  theater  of  the  revolt,  that  "the  Servian  and  Montenegrin 
regular  troops  undertook  and  did  everything,  from  the  first  day  on  which  they 


1See  also  the  Reichspost  of  September  29,  and  the  enumeration  of  massacres  committed 
in  the  first  fortnight  of  September,  1913,  as  set  forth  in  the  petition  of  the  meeting  of 
Albanian  representatives  at  Scutari  on  September  21,  quoted  above. 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  151 

invaded  the  Albanian  territory,  either  to  compel  the  inhabitants  to  lose  their 
nationality,  or  brutally  to  suppress  the  Shkiptar  race." 

Houses  and  whole  villages  reduced  to  ashes,  unarmed  and  innocent  popu- 
lations massacred  en  masse,  incredible  acts  of  violence,  pillage  and  brutality  of 
every  kind — such  were  the  means  which  were  employed  and  are  still  being 
employed  by  the  Serbo-Montenegrin  soldiery,  with  a  view  to  the  entire  trans- 
formation of  the  ethnic  character  of  regions  inhabited  exclusively  by  Albanians. 

We  thus  arrive  at  the  second  characteristic  feature  of  the  Balkan  wars,  a 
feature  which  is  a  necessary  correlative  of  the  first.  Since  the  population  of  the 
countries  about  to  be  occupied  knew,  by  tradition,  instinct  and  experience,  what 
they  had  to  expect  from  the  armies  of  the  enemy  and  from  the  neighboring 
countries  to  which  these  armies  belonged,  they  did  not  await  their  arrival,  but 
fled.  Thus,  generally  speaking,  the  army  of  the  enemy  found  on  its  way  nothing 
but  villages  which  were  either  half  deserted  or  entirely  abandoned.  To  execute 
the  orders  for  extermination,  it  was  only  necessary  to  set  fire  to  them.  The 
population,  warned  by  the  glow  from  these  fires,  fled  in  all  haste.  There  fol- 
lowed a  veritable  migration  of  peoples,  for  in  Macedonia,  as  in  Thrace,  there 
was  hardly  a  spot  which  was  not,  at  a  given  moment,  on  the  line  of  march  of 
some  army  or  other.  The  Commission  everywhere  encountered  this  second 
fact.  All  along  the  railways  interminable  trains  of  carts  drawn  by  oxen  fol- 
lowed one  another;  behind  them  came  emigrant  families  and,  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  big  towns,  bodies  of  refugees  were  found  encamped. 

At  Salonica  the  Commission  visited  one  of  these  camps,  and  made  inquiries 
of  the  Islamic  Committee,  whose  business  it  was  to  transport  the  refugees  to 
Anatolia.  They  were  Turkish  emigrants.  Some  of  them  had  left  their  villages 
several  weeks  ago;  they  came  from  all  parts  of  Macedonia,  from  Soundja, 
Djoumaya-Bala,  Nevrocope,  Petritche,  Razlogue,  Tchakova,  Demir-Hissar, 
Osmanie,  Berovo,  Radovitch.  At  the  beginning  of  September,  when  the  Com- 
mission made  its  inquiry,  about  135,000  emigrants  had  passed  through  Salonica 
since  the  beginning  of  the  second  war.  Each  steamer  starting  for  Anatolia 
carried  some  2,500  bound  for  Mersina,  Adalia  or  Iskenderoum.  Why  were 
they  quitting  their  villages?  The  Commission  wished  to  learn  the  reason  from 
their  own  lips.  Some  of  its  members  went  to  the  camp,  without  taking  the 
official  guide^  and  entered  into  conversation  with  isolated  groups  of  emigrants: — 
"Who  are  you,  whence  do  you  come,  wherefore  have  you  departed?" — "We 
have  come" — the  old  man  waved  his  hand  to  indicate  the  plain  dotted  with  carts — 
"from  twenty-six  different  villages.  It  has  taken  us  twenty-five  days  to  get  here, 
and  we  have  been  here  for  ten.  We  were  afraid  of  the  Bulgarians." — "Why?" 
Thereupon  we  heard  the  story  which  the  reader  knows  from  the  chapter  on 
Thrace.  "But  this  happened  during  the  first  war,  and  now?" — "Now  *  *  * 
the  Greeks  have  given  us  the  order  to  go."  "Whither  are  you  going?  Who  is 
feeding  you?"  Silence.  Nobody  knows. 


152 


REPORT    OF    THE    BALKAN    COMMISSION 


FIGS.  19,  20,  21. — REFUGEES  ENCAMPED  OUTSIDE  SALONICA 


THE  WAR  AND  THE    NATIONALITIES 


153 


S 

5 


154  REPORT   OF    THE    BALKAN    COMMISSION 

At  the  Islamic  Committee  one  thing  only  was  known,  namely  that  50  Turk- 
ish pounds  a  day  was  spent  on  buying  bread.  In  the  last  four  days,  3,000  men 
had  had  their  voyage  to  Anatolia  paid  for  them,  and  the  Committee's  resources 
were  at  an  end.  Tfie  Greek  government,  in  spite  of  the  promises  of  money 
and  land  lavished  to  secure  the  departure  of  all  these  people,  was  doing  nothing. 

In  ,  Bulgaria'  things  were  very  much  the  same.  The  Commission  visited 
various  :places  where  refugees  were  temporarily  gathered — Djoumaya,  Samakov. 
The  government  estimated  that  as  many  as  111,560  emigrants  fled  to  Bulgaria. 
These  refugees  were  divided  into  38  cantons.  About  50,000  of  them  came  from 
the  parts  of  Macedonia  now  belonging  to  Servia  or  to  Greece;  of  these  only 
2,400  were  repatriated.  Thirty  thousand  came  from  parts  of  Thrace  which  have 
remained  under  Turkish  rule.  These  figures  were  published  on  September  12/25 
(£cho  de  Bulgarie).  On  December  22/January  4,  1914,  another  Bulgarian 
paper,  the  Mir,  published  more  detailed  statistics  of  the  refugees  under  this 
latter  head.  Unfortunately,  in  the  course  of  the  events  of  the  last  two  months, 
the  number  of  these  emigrants  from  Turkey  rose  from  30,000  to  51,427  men, 
women  and  children.  This  was  the  population  of  108  abandoned  villages  and 
of  10,934  houses.  .Winter,  which  was  beginning  when  the  Commission  was  in 
Bulgaria,  has  since  come  on.  We  learn  in  the  letter  from  Haskovo,  dated 
October  24/November  6,  that  those  among  the  emigrants  who  possessed  carts, 
oxen  or  camels  were  sent  after  the  Bulgarian  army  to  Gumurjina,  and  6,209 
others  had  to  be  sent  by  railway.  Were  these  all  the  others  ?  The  same  corres- 
pondent describes  them  to  us  as  being  insufficiently  clad  and  ill-sheltered,  ex- 
posed to  the  cold  and  threatened  with  pneumonia  and  with  typhus,  sometimes 
lacking  bread  throughout  whole  weeks. 

While  the  80,000  Bulgarian  refugees  are  addressing  their  supplications  to  Sir 
Edward  Grey,  the  telegraphic  agency  at  Athens  informs  us  that  100,000  others, 
Greeks  by  nationality,  are  fleeing  from  Bulgarian  administration.1  Exact  sta- 
tistics are  not  available,  and  we  are  aware  that  reliance  can  not  be  placed  on 
figures  given  by  popular  meetings,  or  by  official  agencies.  Nevertheless,  it  may 
be  believed  that  we  are  not  dealing  here  with  isolated  cases,  but  with  a  real 
exodus ;  a  portion  of  the  picture  to  be  seen  throughout  the  Balkans.  The  Turks 
are  fleeing  before  the  Christians,  the  Bulgarians  before  the  Greeks  and  the 
Turks,  the  Greeks  and  the  Turks  before  the  Bulgarians,  the  Albanians  before 
the  Servians ;  and  if  emigration  is  not  so  general  as  between  the  Servians  and 
the  Bulgarians,  the  reason  is  that  these  two  nations  have  not,  so  to  speak,  en- 


1The  Athenian  correspondent  of  the  Times  gives  these  figures  on  August  21;  they 
record  the  numbers  passingvthe  frontier.  He  himself  has  them  from  an  "individual  coming 
from  Macedonia"  who  "gave  him  details  on  the  emigration  movement  going  on  in  the  dis- 
tricts of  Upper  Macedonia,  which  the  Greek  troops  are  clearing  all  the  time."  This  agrees 
with  the  information  received  by  the  Commission  from  the  refugees  themselves,  at  Salonica 
and  Sofia,  as  to  the  specific  character  of  this  exodus,  which  was  prepared  and  encouraged 
by  the  Greek  authorities  who  offered  carts  and  even  motors  to  those  who  agreed  to  emi- 
grate. (See  below.) 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  155 

countered  on  their  own  soil,  while  that  soil  coveted  by  each,  namely  Macedonia, 
they  regarded  as  already  peopled  by  men  of  their  own  race.1  That  is  why  we 
have  to  deal  here  with  a  mitigated  form  of  the  same  principle  of  the  conflict  of 
nationalities.  The  means  employed  by  the  Greek  against  the  Bulgarian,  by  the 
Turk  against  the  Slav,  by  the  Servian  against  the  Albanian,  is  no  longer  exter- 
mination or  emigration:  it  is  an  indirect  method  which  must,  however,  lead  to 
the  same  end,  that  of  conversion  and  assimilation. 

One  example  of  these  forced  conversions  during  the  Balkan  wars  has  become 
classic — that  of  the  pomaks  by  the  Bulgarians.  The  pomaks  are  a  people  of 
Bulgarian  mountaineers,  converted  to  Islamism  by  the  Turks  centuries  ago.  To 
the  number  of  some  400,000  they  inhabit  the  high  plateaus  of  Northern  Mace- 
donia. The  male  population  of  the  nearest  villages  spoke  Turkish  and  had 
become  entirely  Mahometan;  the  women  on  the  other  hand  continued  to  speak 
Bulgarian  and  remained  faithful  to  certain  Slav  customs.  In  the  more  remote 
centers,  however,  among  the  mountains  of  Rhodope,  or  Tikveche,  the  pomaks 
remain  faithful  to  monogamy,  and  to  their  national  songs;  the  Slav  type  was 
even  purer  there  since  they  only  intermarried  among  themselves.  Unlike  the 
Slav  aristocracy  in  the  Balkans,  they  had  not  become  subject  to  Islam  in  order 
to  safeguard  their  social  position.  It  was  a  peasant  population,  although 
throughout  two  centuries  the  young  men  had  served  in  the  Turkish  army,  and 
they  still  preserved  its  warlike  and  fanatical  spirit.  Traces  of  forced  conver- 
sion to  Islam  may  sometimes  be  perceived  in  certain  proper  names  of  places, 
such  as  Mehrilote  or  Hibili  (in  Eastern  Rhodope).  There,  too,  the  places 
pointed  out  called  in  Bulgarian  "Delen"  or  "Setchen,"  that  is  to  say,  the  place 
where  those  were  "separated,"  who  agreed  to  pass  over  to  Islam,  and  those 
massacred  who  refused.  Unhappily  the  modern  conqueror  has  revived  these 
remote  historical  recollections. 

To  revive  a  consciousness  of  lost  nationality  in  the  minds  of  their  kinsmen, 
the  Bulgarians  employed  force  and  persuasion,  persuasion  of  a  type  as  brutal 
as  force.  The  Commission  is  unable  to  cite  any  individual  instance,  but  there 
is  no  reason  for  doubting  those  recorded  in  accounts  emanating  from  Greek  or 
Servian  sources.  The  story  of  a  witness  returned  from  Macedonia  is  quoted 
in  a  despatch  of  August  21,  transmitted  by  the  Athenian  correspondent  of 
the  Times: 

The  Moslems  were  ranged  in  groups.  Each  group  was  given  some 
baptismal  name,  generally  a  name  honored  in  the  Bulgarian  church  or  in 
Bulgarian  history.  An  exarchist  pope  then  passed  from  group  to  group 
and  took  aside  each  of  his  catechumens  sui  generis;  and  while  sprinkling 
his  forehead  with  holy  water  with  one  hand,  with  the  other  he  compelled 
him  to  bite  a  sausage.  The  holy  water  represented  baptism,  the  piece  of 

xAs  this  chapter  is  going  to  press,  Queen  Eleonora    of   Bulgaria    speaks    in   the   Neue 
Freie  Presse  of  60,000  refugees  in  Bulgaria,  destitute  of  shelter  or  clothing. 


156  REPORT   OF    THE    BALKAN    COMMISSION 

sausage  renunciation  of  the  Moslem  faith,  since  the  Koran  forbids  the 
eating  of  pork.  The  conversion  was  completed  by  the  issue  of  a  certificate 
adorned  with  a  picture  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus,  the  price  of  which  varied 
between  one  and  three  francs.  A  friend  who  arrived  today  from  Thrace 
told  me  that  what  is  happening  in  Macedonia  is  also  happening  there.  He 
showed  me  two  baptismal  certificates.  He  added  that  the  converted  were 
obliged  to  give  up  their  fez,  and  the  converted  women  to  walk  in  the  streets 
with  their  faces  uncovered. 

In  an  official  report  to  the  Sub-Prefect  of  Kavadar,  on  March  2,  1913,  a 
petty  Servian  official,  Mr.  Drakalovits,  says : 

At  Pechtchevo  (Maleche  plateau)  a  special  committee  has  been  formed, 
with  the  Bulgarian  Sub-Prefect,  Chatoyev,  as  its  President,  and  among  its 
members  John  Ingilisov,  the  director  of  Bulgarian  schools,  and  the  priest, 
Chatoyev,  the  brother  of  the  Sub-Prefect.  This  committee  was  instituted 
to  convert  all  the  Turks  of  Maleche  to  Christianity.  By  order  of  the  com- 
mittee, 400  peasants  of  the  place  were  armed  with  muskets  and  sticks ;  they 
attacked  Turks  of  the  neighboring  villages  and  forcibly  led  them  into  the 
church  at  Verovo,  where  they  were  all  baptized.  Finally  on  February  17, 
baptism  was  carried  out  at  Beloro,  where  there  were  ten  Turkish  families 
and  ten  Bosnian  (Servian)  Mahometan  families.  Pechtchevo  alone  was 
spared,  the  reason  being  (so  we  were  told)  that  the  Sub-Prefect  would  not 
allow  violence  in  the  town.  A  Turk  from  Pechtchevo  told  us  that  every 
Turkish  house  had  to  pay  two  pounds  for  its  protection.  Four  Turks  who 
could  not  pay  such  a  sum  hanged  themselves  in  despair  in  their  houses.  In 
the  other  Turkish  villages  conversions  were  not  exacted,  because  the  popu- 
lation was  too  poor,  whereas  the  Turks  at  Pechtchevo  were  known  to 
be  rich. 

The  Commission  more  than  once  had  opportunity  to  discuss  these  conver- 
sions with  the  Bulgarian  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities.  They  were  not 
denied  by  either,  although  they  unanimously  regarded  them  as  an  outrage  on 
humanity  and  a  grave  political  error  in  the  case  of  people  who  were  to  be  Bul- 
garian subjects.  The  following  judgment,  which  is  no  less  severe  than  anything 
written  even  by  the  enemies  of  Bulgaria,  is  commended  to  the  attention  of  the 
reader.  It  is  that  of  an  intellectual,  the  Bulgarian  writer,  A.  Strachimirov : 

Those  who  stand  for  the  thought  and  the  honor  of  our  country  ought 
to  know  that  our  authorities  have,  in  the  countries  on  the  frontier  inhabited 
by  the  pomaks  and  recently  liberated,  acted  in  a  way  which  is  a  disgrace 
to  their  country  and  to  humanity.  One  aim  alone  was  kept  in  sight — that 
of  personal  enrichment.  Conversion  was  only  a  pretext.  It  did  not  save 
the  poor  pomaks  from  atrocious  treatment  except  where  the  priests  with 
whom  they  had  to  deal  were  conscientious  men.  Such  cases,  however,  were 
rare.  The  ecclesiastical  mission  was  beneath  criticism.  High  rewards  were 
paid,  but  the  priests  sent  to  carry  out  this  task  in  the  pomak  villages  were 
drunkards  and  criminals  who  could  not  be  kept  in  Bulgaria.  The  behavior 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  157 

of  the  police  was  monstrous.  In  Bulgaria  no  one  has  and  no  one  can  have 
any  idea  of  the  atrocities  committed  by  prefects,  heads  of  police,  and  priests. 
Yet  at  first  these  pomaks  showed  the  most  absolute  submission  to  our  army. 
In  the  last  two  decades  they  had  conceived  a  hatred  for  Turkism.  Their  prin- 
cipal grievance  was  the  defective  condition  of  their  mountain  roads  and 
the  burden  of  annual  duties.  They  knew  that  this  state  of  things  had  been 
largely  remedied  in  Bulgaria,  and  they  held  to  the  idea  that  the  Bulgarian 
government  would  at  least  give  them  roads.  At  Dary-deri  a  pomak,  an 
officer  in  the  reserve  of  the  Turkish  army,  came  before  the  authorities  and 
had  himself  baptized  because  he  was  fired  by  the  idea  that  the  Bulgarians 
brought  nothing  but  good  with  them.  He  was  at  last  disillusioned,  and  he 
and  his  children  were  massacred  by  their  neighbors. 

Nevertheless  the  Bulgarian  government  is  not  ignorant  as  to  the  steps 
which  should  be  taken  to  satisfy  the  population  of  the  annexed  region  and 
secure  their  gratitude.  It  has  itself  declared  in  a  manifesto  addressed  "to 
the  inhabitants  of  the  newly  liberated  region,  published  the  day  after  the 
conclusion  of  the  Treaty  with  Turkey,  September  16/29,  1913," — most 
formal  orders  are  given  to  the  Bulgarian  civil  and  military  authorities  to 
display  the  greatest  kindness  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  annexed  territories, 
to  respect  their  faith  and  their  nationality,  to  refrain  from  any  attack  on 
their  personal  liberty,  and  to  maintain  the  inviolability  of  their  houses  and 
their  property.  The  citizens  of  new  Bulgaria  are  to  enjoy,  without  distinc- 
tion of  religion  or  nationality,  the  same  rights  which  are  secured  by  the 
constitution  of  the  kingdom  to  all  its  citizens.  Respect  for  religious  free- 
dom and  for  education  is  enjoined,  and  also  respect  for  the  religious  beliefs 
and  usages,  the  mosques,  cemeteries  and  other  holy  places  of  all  citizens 
alike. 

If  only  these  maxims  could  be  applied  today  and  "the  tragic  recollec- 
tion of  bloody  events  which  have  involved  the  contending  nations  and  their 
subjects  in  misfortune  could  forever  disappear  in  the  triumph  of  peace,  love 
and  concord !" 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  an  understanding  between  Bulgaria  and  Turkey,  based 
on  these  fair  promises,  is  by  no  means  impossible.  Many  Turks  have  been  under 
the  Bulgarian  regime  since  the  origin  of  the  kingdom;  they  seldom  had  to  com- 
plain of  their  new  masters.  They  were  always  on  the  side  of  the  government. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  principle  of  religious  and  educational  liberty,  although 
rejected  by  the  Young  Turk  government,  is  an  ancient  Turkish  principle,  to 
which  there  would  be  prudence  in  reverting,  after  so  many  trials  and  defeats. 
The  fact  that  very  few  Bulgarians  are  left  in  Turkey  would  facilitate  such  a 
reversion.  There  is  thus  reason  for  hoping  that  the  treaty  of  Constantinople 
may  bring  together  two  governments  who  have  no  longer  any  ground  for  dispute 
and  who  might  find  themselves  in  agreement,  as  regards  the  rights  of  their 
kinsmen.  A  happy  beginning  has  been  made  in  Thrace.  It  is  now  necessary 
to  create  an  efficient  administrative  apparatus — it  is  far  from  being  in  existence 
as  yet,  unfortunately — to  put  these  excellent  principles  in  practice. 

One  can  not  say  as  much,  unfortunately,  of  the  work  of  the  treaty  of 


158  REPORT    OF    THE    BALKAN    COMMISSION 

Bucharest.  The  lines  of  demarcation  therein  laid  down  are  far  from  being 
natural  or  consonant  with  the  national  tendencies  of  the  peoples.  The  third 
treaty  of  Bucharest  has  sown  a  new  seed  of  discord  in  its  violation  of  the  senti- 
ment of  nationality:  it  divides  the  Balkan  territories  on  the  principle  on  which 
the  treaty  of  Vienna  divided  the  national  regions  of  Europe  in  1815.  This 
historical  example  suggests  that  here,  too,  national  reaction  will  follow  on  the 
work  of  diplomatic  and  political  reaction. 

It  only  remains  to  set  out  the  facts,  or  rather  to  complete  the  outline 
sketched  in  Chapter  I,  to  afford  convincing  proof  of  this.  What  has  become 
of  Macedonia,  so  often  the  apple  of  discord,  now  that  the  work  of  concord 
appears  to  be  completed?  It  displays  nothing  but  violence,  and  suggests  no  hope 
of  ultimate  harmony. 

2.     SERVIAN  MACEDONIA 

A  comparison  of  the  ethnographic  and  linguistic  maps  drawn  up  by  Mes- 
sers  Kantchev,  Tsviyits  (Cviyic)  and  Belits,  with  the  new  frontiers  of  the 
treaty  of  Bucharest  reveals  the  gravity  of  the  task  undertaken  by  the  Servians. 
They  have  not  merely  resumed  possession  of  their  ancient  domain,  the  Sandjak 
of  Novi-Bazar  and  Old  Servia  proper  (Kosovo  Pole  and  Metchia),  despite  the 
fact  that  this  historic  domain  was  strongly  Albanian ;  they  have  not  merely  added 
thereto  the  tract  described  by  patriotic  Servian  ethnographers  as  "Enlarged  Old 
Servia"  (an  ancient  geographical  term  which  we  have  seen  twice  enlarged,  once 
by  Mr.  Tsviyits  and  again  by  Mr.  Belits)  j1  over  and  above  all  this,  their  facile 
generosity  impelled  them  to  share  with  the  Greeks  the  population  described  on 
their  maps  as  "Slav-Macedonian" — a  euphemism  designed  to  conceal  the  exist- 
ence of  Bulgarians  in  Macedonia.  And  their  acquisitions  under  the  treaty  of 
Bucharest  went  beyond  their  most  extravagant  pretensions.  They  took  advan- 
tage of  the  Bulgarians'  need  to  conclude  peace  at  any  price  to  deprive  them 
of  territories  to  the  east  of  the  Vardar,  for  example,  Chtipe  and  Radoviche, 
where  Bulgarian  patriotism  glowed  most  vividly  and  where  the  sacrifices  accepted 
by  Bulgarian  patriots  for  the  sake  of  freeing  Macedonia,  had  always  been 
exceptionally  great.  This  was  adding  insult  to  injury. 

Mr.  Skerlits,  a  Servian  deputy  and  member  of  the  opposition,  closed  his 
speech  in  the  Skupshtina  on  October  18/31,  1913,  with  these  memorable  words: 
"We  do  not  regard  territorial  results  as  everything.  Enlarged  Servia  does  not 
spell,  for  us,  a  country  in  which  the  number  of  policemen,  tax  collectors  and 
controllers  has  been  doubled.  New  Servia,  greater  Servia  must  be  a  land  of 
greater  liberty,  greater  justice,  greater  general  well  being.  May  Servia,  twice 
as  great  as  she  was,  be  not  twice  as  weak  but  twice  as  strong." 

Unfortunately  these  generous  words  are  but  pia  desideria.  For  some  time 
the  government  hesitated.  Nevertheless,  Mr.  Pachitch  must  have  understood 

1See  chapter  I,  p.  29. 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  159 

that  the  question  whether  Servia's  acquisitions  were  to  make  her  twice  as  weak 
or  twice  as  strong  depended  on  the  policy  pursued  in  Macedonia.  During  the 
days  spent  by  the  Commission  at  Belgrade  the  question  was  debated.  There 
were  two  antagonistic  views.  One,  represented  by  Mr.  Pachitch  himself,  wanted 
a  "liberal"  regime  in  Macedonia  and  the  avoidance,  at  any  price,  of  a  "military 
dictatorship."  The  population  of  the  new  territories  was  to  be  left  to  express 
its  loyalty  spontaneously;  to  wait  "until  it  realized  that  its  new  lot  was  sweeter 
than  the  old."  Military  circles,  however,  did  not  share  this  view.  They  were 
for  a  military  administration,  since  a  civil  administration  in  their  view,  "must 
be  incapable  of  repressing  the  propagandism  sure  to  be  carried  on  by  the  Bul- 
garians."1 True,  the  '"'liberal"  regime  as  projected  by  Mr.  Pachitch  was  not  so 
liberal  as  the  Bulgarian  manifesto  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  annexed  countries 
had  hoped.  The  new  citizens  were  not  to  possess  the  franchise  for  fear  lest  a 
new  "Macedonian"  party  should  thus  be  brought  into  the  Skupshtina  to  upset 
all  the  relations  between  the  contending  parties  in  the  kingdom  and  form  the 
mark  of  common  jealousy.  Some  sort  of  local  franchise  or  self-government  was 
considered.  A  kind  of  compromise  was  suggested  in  the  shape  of  military 
administration  with  a  civil  annex  and  representatives  of  the  departments  at 
Belgrade,  on  the  familiar  plan  employed  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  before  the 
1908  annexation.  In  any  case,  the  question  of  the  administration  to  be  erected 
in  Macedonia  displayed  so  wide  a  divergence  between  the  views  of  Mr.  Pachitch 
and  his  colleagues,  apart  from  the  military  group,  that  Mr.  Pachitch's  resignation 
was  talked  of. 

Mr.  Pachitch  neither  resigned  nor  insisted  on  his  own  standpoint.  Silence 
fell  on  such  isolated  voices  as  that  of  the  President  of  the  Skupshtina,  Mr.  Andre 
Nicolits.  who  protested  in  the  foreign  press  against  the  exceptional  regime  in 
Macedonia  and  asked  for  constitutional  guarantees.  The  Piemont,  the  organ 
of  the  military  party,  declared  that  such  notions  were  "opposed  to  the  interests 
of  the  State,"  and  assured  the  Servian  public  that  "the  population  of  Macedonia 
had  never  for  a  moment  thought  of  elections,  or  communal  self-government," 
«tc. ;  that  "nothing  save  a  military  regime  could  be  entirely  just,  humanely  severe 
and  sufficiently  firm  to  break  the  will  of  individuals  or  groups  hostile  to  the 
State." 

Macedonia  had  thus  to  be  viewed  as  a  dependency,  a  sort  of  conquered 
colony,  which  these  conquerors  might  administer  at  their  good  pleasure.  In 
the  course  of  the  debates  on  the  address  in  the  Skupshtina  (November)  this 
attitude  found  highly  definite  expression  in  a  reply  of  Mr.  Protits,  a  member 
of  the  cabinet,  interrupted  by  a  member  of  the  opposition.  "The  question,"  said 
Mr.  Protits,  "is — are  we  to  apply  to  Old  Servia  the  constitution  created  by  the 
Servian  Kingdom  and  which  has  had  happy  results?"  Mr.  Paul  Marinkovits — 

1See  the  Stampa,  August  13/26.     The  contents  of  these  communications  came  to  our 
knowledge  at  Belgrade  itself,  from  reliable,  first-hand  Servian  sources. 


160  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

"But  Old  Servia  is  the  Servian  Kingdom." — "No,  it  is  not  the  Servian  Kingdom." 
Such  was  the  spirit  in  which  the  Servian  government  on  September  21/ 
October  4,  issued  a  decree  on  "public  security"  in  the  recently  acquired  terri- 
tories, which  amounted  to  the  establishment  of  a  military  dictatorship,  and  called 
forth  cries  of  horror  in  the  foreign  press.  The  document  is  so  characteristic 
and  so  important  that,  despite  its  length,  we  quote  it  in  extenso: 

Article  1.  The  police  authorities  are  authorized,  in  case  of  a  deficiency  in  the  regular 
organization  for  securing  the  liberty  and  security  of  persons  and  property,  to  ask  the 
military  commander  for  the  troops  necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  order  and  tranquillity. 
The  military  commander  is  bound  to  comply  immediately  with  these  demands,  and  the 
police  is  bound  to  inform  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  of  them. 

Article  2.  Any  attempt  at  rebellion  against  the  public  powers  is  punishable  by  five 
years'  penal  servitude. 

The  decision  of  the  police  authorities,  published  in  the  respective  communes,  is  suf- 
ficient proof  of  the  commission  of  crime. 

If  the  rebel  refuses  to  give  himself  up  as  prisoner  within  ten  days  from  such  publica- 
tion, he  may  be  put  to  death  by  any  public  or  military  officer. 

Article  3.  Any  person  accused  of  rebellion  in  terms  of  the  police  decision  and  who 
commits  any  crime  shall  be  punished  with  death. 

If  the  accused  person  himself  gives  himself  up  as  a  prisoner  into  the  hands  of  the 
authorities,  the  death  penalty  shall  be  commuted  to  penal  servitude  for  ten  or  twenty 
years,  always  provided  that  the  commutation  is  approved  by  the  tribunal. 

Article  4.  Where  several  cases  of  rebellion  occur  in  a  commune  and  the  rebels  do  not 
return  to  their  homes  within  ten  days  from  the  police  notice,  the  authorities  have  the  right 
of  deporting  their  families  whithersoever  they  may  find  convenient. 

Likewise  the  inhabitants  of  the  houses  in  which  armed  persons  or  criminals  in  general 
are  found  concealed,  shall  be  deported. 

The  heads  of  the  police  shall  transmit  to  the  Prefecture  a  report  on  the  deportation 
procedure,  which  is  to  be  put  in  force  immediately. 

The  Minister  of  the  Interior  shall,  if  he  think  desirable,  rescind  deportation  measures. 

Article  5.  Any  person  deported  by  an  order  of  the  Prefecture  who  shall  return  to  his 
original  domicile  without  the  authorization  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  shall  be  pun- 
ished by  three  years'  imprisonment. 

Article  6.  If  in  any  commune  or  any  canton  the  maintenance  of  security  demands  the 
sending  of  troops,  the  maintenance  of  the  latter  shall  be  charged  to  the  commune  or  the 
canton.  In  such  a  case  the  Prefect  is  to  be  notified. 

If  order  is  restored  after  a  brief  interval  and  the  culprits  taken,  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior  may  refund  such  expenses  to  the  canton  or  the  commune. 

The  Minister  may  act  in  this  way  as  often  as  he  may  think  desirable. 

Article  7.  Any  person  found  carrying  arms  who  has  not  in  his  possession  a  permit 
from  the  police  or  from  the  Prefect,  or  who  shall  hide  arms  in  his  house  or  elsewhere, 
shall  be  condemned  to  a  penalty  varying  from  three  months'  imprisonment  to  five  years' 
penal  servitude. 

Anyone  selling  arms  or  ammunition  without  a  police  permit  shall  be  liable  to  the  same 
penalty. 

Article  8.  Any  person  using  any  kind  of  explosives,  knowing  that  such  use  is 
dangerous  to  the  life  and  goods  of  others,  shall  be  punished  with  twenty  years'  penal 
servitude. 

Article  9.  Anyone  who  shall  prepare  explosives  or  direct  their  preparation  or  who 
knows  of  the  existence  of  explosives  intended  for  the  commission  of  a  crime  shall,  subject 
to  Article  8,  be  punished  by  ten  years'  penal  servitude. 

Article  10.  Any  person  receiving,  keeping  or  transporting  explosives  intended  for  a 
criminal  purpose  shall  be  punished  by  five  years'  penal  servitude,  except  where  he  does  so 
with  the  intention  of  preventing  the  commission  of  a  crime. 

Article  11.  Any  person  who  uses  an  explosive  without  any  evil  intention,  shall  be  pun- 
ished by  five  years'  penal  servitude. 

Article  12.  (1)  Anyone  deliberately  harming  the  roads,  streets  or  squares  in  such  a  way 
as  to  endanger  life  or  public  health,  shall  be  punished  by  fifteen  years'  penal  servitude. 

If  the  delinquency  be  unintentional  the  penalty  shall  be  five  years. 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  161 

(2)  If  the  author  of  the  crime  cited  above  causes  danger  to  the  life  or  health  of 
numerous  persons,  or  if  his  action  results  in  the  death  of  several  individuals  (and  this 
could  be  foreseen),  he  shall  be  punished  by  death  or  twenty  years'  penal  servitude.  If 
the  crime  be  unpremeditated  the  punishment  shall  be  ten  years. 

Article  13.  Any  attempt  at  damaging  the  railway  lines  or  navigation,  shall  be  punished 
by  twenty  years'  penal  servitude.  If  the  attempt  is  not  premeditated  the  punishment  shall 
be  for  ten  years. 

If  the  author  of  such  attempt  has  endangered  the  life  of  several  individuals,  or  if 
his  action  results  in  death  or  wounds  to  several  persons,  he  shall  be  punished  by  death 
or  twenty  years'  penal  servitude. 

Article  14.  Any  person  injuring  the  means  of  telegraphic  or  telephonic  communication 
shall  be  punished  by  fifteen  years'  penal  servitude.  If  the  act  is  not  premeditated  the 
penalty  shall  be  five  years. 

Article  15.  Generally  speaking  the  concealment  of  armed  or  guilty  persons  shall  be 
punished  by  ten  years'  penal  servitude. 

Article  16.  Anyone  who  knows  a  malefactor  and  does  not  denounce  him  to  the 
authorities  shall  be  punished  by  five  years'  penal  servitude. 

Article  17.  Those  instigating  to  disobedience  against  the  established  powers,  the  laws 
and  the  regulations  with  the  force  of  law;  rebels  against  the  authorities  or  public  or 
communal  officers;  shall  be  punished  by  twenty-one  months'  imprisonment  up  to  ten 
years'  penal  servitude. 

If  such  acts  produce  no  effects,  the  penalty  may  be  reduced  to  three  months. 

Article  18.  Any  act  of  aggression  and  any  resistance  either  by  word  or  force,  offered 
to  a  public  or  communal  officer  charged  with  putting  in  force  a  decision  of  the  tribunal, 
or  an  order  of  the  communal  or  police  public  authority,  during  the  exercise  of  his  duties, 
may  be  punished  by  ten  years'  penal  servitude  or  at  least  six  months'  imprisonment, 
however  insignificant  be  the  magnitude  of  the  crime. 

Any  aggression  against  those  helping  the  public  officer,  or  experts  specially  called  in, 
may  be  punished  by  the  same  penalty. 

If  the  aggression  offered  to  the  public  officer  takes  place  outside  the  exercise  of  his 
official  duties  the  penalty  shall  be  two  years'  imprisonment. 

Article  19.  Where  the  crimes  here  enumerated  are  perpetrated  by  an  associated  group 
of  persons,  the  penalty  shall  be  fifteen  years'  penal  servitude.  The  accomplices  of  those 
who  committed  the  above  mentioned  misdeeds  against  public  officials  shall  be  punished 
by  the  maximum  penalty,  and,  if  this  is  thought  insufficient,  they  may  be  condemned  to 
penal  servitude  for  a  period  amounting  to  twenty  years. 

Article  20.  Those  who  recruit  bands  against  the  State,  or  with  a  view  to  offering 
resistance  to  public  authorities  shall  be  liable  to  a  penalty  of  twenty  years'  penal  servitude. 

Article  21.  Accomplices  of  rebels  or  of  bands  offering  armed  resistance  to  Servian 
troops  or  the  public  or  communal  officers,  shall  be  punished  by  death  or  by  at  least  ten 
years'  penal  servitude. 

Article  22.  Persons  taking  part  in  seditious  meetings  which  do  not  disperse  when 
ordered  to  do  so  by  the  administrative  or  communal  authorities  are  liable  to  terms  of 
imprisonment  up  to  two  years. 

Article  23.  In  the  case  of  the  construction  of  roads,  or,  generally  speaking,  of 
public  works  of  all  kinds,  agitators  who  incite  workmen  to  strike  or  who  are  unwilling 
to  work  or  who  seek  to  work  elsewhere  or  in  another  manner,  from  that  in  which  they 
are  told  and  who  persist  in  such  insubordination,  after  notification  by  the  authorities 
shall  be  punished  by  imprisonment  from  three  months  up  to  two  years. 

Article  24.  Any  soldier  or  citizen  called  to  the  colors  who  does  not  follow  the 
call,  or  who  refuses  in  the  army  to  obey  his  superiors,  shall  be  condemned  to  a  penalty 
varying  from  three  months'  imprisonment  to  five  years'  penal  servitude. 

Soldiers  who  assist  any  one  to  desert  from  the  army  or  who  desert  themselves,  and 
those  who  make  endeavors  to  attract  Servian  subjects  to  serve  with  foreign  troops,  shall 
be  punished  by  ten  years'  penal  servitude. 

In  time  of  mobilization  or  war  the  penalty  for  this  delinquency  is  death. 

Article  25.  Anybody  releasing  an  individual  under  surveillance  or  under  the  guard  of 
officials  or  public  employes  for  surveillance,  guard  or  escort,  or  setting  such  person  at 
liberty,  shall  be  condemned  to  penal  servitude  for  a  maximum  period  of  five  years. 

Where  such  delinquency  is  the  work  of  an  organized  group  of  individuals,  each 
accomplice  shall  be  liable  to  a  penalty  of  between  three  and  five  years'  penal  servitude. 

Article  26.  The  Prefects  have  the  right  to  prescribe  in  their  name  police  measures  to 
safeguard  the  life  and  property  of  those  subject  to  their  administration.  They  shall 
fix  penalties  applicable  to  those  who  refuse  to  submit  to  such  measures. 


162  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

The  penalty  shall  consist  of  a  maximum  period  of  three  years'  imprisonment  or  of  a 
pecuniary  fine  up  to  a  thousand  dinars. 

The  edicts  of  the  Prefects  shall  come  into  force  immediately,  but  the  Prefects  are 
bound  to  communicate  them  at  once  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior. 

Article  27.  The  crimes  set  forth  in  the  present  regulations  are  to  have  precedence 
of  all  other  suits  before  the  judicial  tribunals  and  judgment  upon  them  is  to  be  executed 
with  the  briefest  possible  delay. 

Persons  indicted  for  such  offences  shall  be  subject  to  preventive  detention  until  final 
judgment  is  passed  on  their  cases.  Within  a  three  days'  delay  the  tribunal  shall  send 
its  findings  to  the  High  Court,  and  the  latter  shall  proceed  immediately  to  the  examination 
of  this  decision. 

Article  28.  The  law  of  July  12,  1895,  as  to  the  pursuit  and  destruction  of  brigands, 
which  came  into  force  on  August  18,  1913,  is  applicable  to  the  annexed  territories,  in 
so  far  as  it  is  not  modified  by  the  present  regulations. 

Article  29.  Paragraphs  92,  93,  95,  96,  97,  98,  302  b,  302  c,  302  d,  (so  far  as  concerns 
paragraphs  b  and  c)  304,  306,  and  360,  and  Section  III  of  the  penal  code  which  do  not 
agree  with  the  present  regulation,  are  null  and  void. 

Article  30.  The  present  regulation  does  not  abolish  the  provisions  of  paragraph  34  of 
the  penal  military  code,  in  connection  with  paragraph  4  of  the  same  code,  paragraphs  52  and 
69  of  the  penal  military  code  and  paragraph  4  of  the  same,  which  are  not  applicable  to 
civil  persons. 

Article  31.  The  present  regulation  is  in  force  from  the  day  of  its  signature  by  the 
King  and  its  publication  in  the  Servian  press. 

We  order  our  Council  of  Ministers  to  make  the  present  regulation  public  and  to  see 
that  it  is  carried  into  effect:  we  order  the  public  authorities  to  act  in  conformity  with 
it,  and  we  order  each  and  all  to  submit  to  it. 

Executed  at  Belgrade,  September  21,  1913. 

PETER." 

In  the  words  of  the  Socialist  Servian  paper,  Radnitchke  Noirine,  "If  the 
liberation  of  these  territories  is  a  fact,  why  then  is  this  exceptional  regime  estab- 
lished there?  If  the  inhabitants  are  Servians  why  are  they  not  made  the  equals 
of  all  the  Servians ;  why  is  the  constitutional  rule  not  put  in  operation  according 
to  which  'all  Servians  are  equal  before  the  law'?  If  the  object  of  the  wars  was 
unification,  why  is  not  this  unification  effectively  recognized,  and  why  are  these 
exceptional  ordinances  created,  such  as  can  only  be  imposed  upon  conquered 
countries  by  conquerors?  Moreover,  our  constitution  does  not  admit  of  rules 
of  this  nature!" 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  one  did  not  know  what  Macedonia  is,  one  might 
guess  it  from  the  publication  of  these  ordinances.  Clearly  Macedonia  was  not 
"Old  Servia"  unified,  since  the  population  is  treated  as  "rebels  in  a  perpetual 
state  of  revolt."  What  the  ordinances  had  in  view  were  not  isolated  criminals, — 
they  had  accomplices  and  people  who  would  hide  them  everywhere.  To  punish 
the  culprit?  That  was  not  enough  while  his  family  remained;  his  family  must 
be  deported  and  the  friends  who  were  unwilling  to  "denounce"  the  culprit,  his 
"associates,"  who  seized  the  opportunity  of  "setting  him  at  liberty"  when  he 
was  "under  surveillance,  guard  or  escort"  by  officials  or  public  employes — they 
must  be  deported  too.  In  short,  a  whole  population  was  "recalcitrant,"  and  to 
resist  it  there  were  only  these  "public  or  communal  officers"  invested  with  ex- 
traordinary powers.  What  were  they  to  do,  when  the  population,  not  content 
with  offering  passive  resistance,  became  "aggressive."  This  population,  called 
to  the  colors,  refused  "to  obey  the  call."  When  asked  to  "work"  on  the  "con- 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  163 

struction  of  roads"  or  on  any  communal  works,  they  struck,  they  preferred  to 
work  "elsewhere  or  in  some  other  manner."  Finally,  each  one  "refused  to  give 
himself  up  as  a  prisoner,"  always  holding  himself  ready  to  attack  the  public 
officers,  "to  resist  them  if  not  by  force  at  least  by  word!"  This  last  crime  is 
punished  by  the  ordinances  by  "ten  years  penal  servitude,  or  at  least  six  months 
imprisonment  however  insignificant  be  the  words  or  the  deeds"  The  hope 
openly  expressed  to  the  members  of  the  Commission  from  the  first  half  of  August 
onwards,  was  that  thanks  to  these  measures  an  end  will  be  made  of  the  resist- 
ance of  the  alien  population  in  Macedonia  in  five  or  six  years ! 

The  military  party  knew  what  it  was  about  when  it  insisted  on  the  publica- 
tion of  this  Draconian  edict,  which  was  but  a  quasi  legal  sanction  given  to  the 
actual  activities  of  the  powers  in  occupation  in  Macedonia.  But  such  a  formal 
admission  on  paper  (in  a  document  immediately  published  in  the  foreign  press) 
frightened  more  than  the  members  of  the  Servian  Opposition.  Thus,  on  Octo- 
ber 15/28,  the  Servian  government,  after  three  weeks'  reflection,  published  cer- 
tain changes  in  the  ordinances  of  September  21.  The  obligation  laid  upon  the 
troops  for  coming  to  the  assistance  of  the  civil  power  became  less  general.  It 
was  now  only  in  the  case  of  "grave  and  serious  trouble"  that  they  were  to  do  so. 
But  the  right  possessed  by  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  not  to  charge  the  popu- 
lation "if  order  was  reestablished  quickly"  (see  Article  6)  was  limited  by  the 
control  of  the  Council  of  Ministers. 

The  scandalous  Article  26,  giving  legislative  power  to  the  Prefects,  was 
amended  by  the  addition  of  the  following  clause: — "On  condition  that  the  ordi- 
nances of  the  Prefects  accord  with  existing  ordinances  and  the  laws."  The 
extent  of  the  sanction  contemplated  in  Article  26  (imprisonment  up  to  three 
years  and  a  fine  up  to  fr.  1,000)  was  reduced  to  one  month  and  fr.  300.  But 
these  amendments  merely  confirm  the  rest  of  the  edict,  and  they  were  clearly 
insufficient.  The  opposition  press  continued  to  attack  the  government  and  to 
demand  the  reign  of  law  for  the  population  of  the  annexed  territories  and  the 
extension  to  these  territories  of  the  constitution  of  the  kingdom.  "If  deputies 
for  the  annexed  territories  had  seats  in  the  Skupshtina,"  said  the  Pravda  of 
November  13/26,  "the  foreign  press,  which  is  at  present  ill-disposed  towards 
Servia,  would  no  longer  be  able  to  retain  the  credence  which  its  malicious  inven- 
tions have  won  in  Europe  as  regards  the  Servian  atrocities."  "A  nation  can  not 
be  conciliated,"  it  added  a  few  days  later,  "by  giving  it  an  inferior  position  under 
the  law."  Another  paper,  the  Novosti,  tried  to  harmonize  these  objections  with 
the  official  theory  of  a  Servian  Macedonia.  "A  military  regime,"  it  said,  "is 
perfectly  adapted  to  a  conquered  country  whose  population  speaks  a  different 
language,  but  this  is  not  the  case  with  a  country  whose  population  is  entirely 
Servian.  That  is  why,"  the  Novosti  concluded,  "the  introduction  of  a  consti- 
tutional regime  in  the  new  territories  is  absolutely  justified." 

The  government  could  not  admit  that  it  was  precisely  this  condition  of 


164  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

identity  of  nationality  which  was  lacking  in  Macedonia.  The  ministerial  organs 
were  reduced  to  saying  "that  the  level  of  culture"  was  not  sufficiently  high 
among  the  Macedonians,  and  that  their  "State  consciousness"  was  not  suffi- 
ciently developed  to  permit  the  immediate  grant  of  full  political  rights.  Finally 
on  November  23/December  6,  the  government  decided  to  announce  the  draft 
of  an  abridged  constitution  for  Macedonia,  which  was  to  be  put  in  force  for  a 
period  of  ten  years.  This  constitution  did  not  sanction  the  liberty  of  the  press 
nor  of  meetings ;  it  conferred  the  right  neither  to  elect  nor  to  be  elected.  Rights 
of  self-government  were  not  given  to  the  electoral  assemblies  of  the  prefectures, 
sub-prefectures  or  communes;  the  magistrates  were  not  irremovable  and  the 
courts  of  criminal  justice  did  not  include  juries.  The  death  penalty,  abolished 
by  Article  13  of  the  Servian  constitution,  was  reestablished  by  the  simple  omis- 
sion of  this  article  in  a  simplified  "constitution."  In  a  word,  it  could  be  said 
that  the  Turkish  "law  of  vilayets,"  in  combination  with  the  ancient  rights  and 
privileges  of  the  Christian  communities,  granted  to  the  different  nationalities 
by  treaties  and  firmans,  gave  far  better  assurance  of  mutual  toleration,  and  even 
a  more  effective  rein  on  the  arbitrary  power  of  the  administration,  than  was 
afforded  by  this  new  draft  constitution,  which,  from  the  administrative  point  of 
view,  did  nothing  to  abolish  the  measures  laid  down  in  the  ordinances  of  Sep- 
tember 21. 

The  opposition  press  did  not  fail  to  point  this  out.  On  November  28/ 
December  11,  the  Pravda  asked,  "Are  the  people  of  the  annexed  territories  to 
have  fewer  rights  now  than  they  possessed  under  Turkish  regime?"  The 
Novosti  said: — "The  population  has  no  rights,  only  duties."  The  Pravda 
pointed  out  that  it  is  better  to  follow  Cavour  than  Bismarck,  and  suggested 
(December  1/14),  that  these  "dictatorial  paragraphs"  were  on  the  high 
road  to  Zabern.  Finally,  despite  the  assurances  of  the  official  organ,  the 
Samrnouprava,  to  the  effect  that  the  new  constitution  guaranteed  the  personal 
property  of  the  individual  in  every  case,  as  well  as  the  moral  and  economic 
development  of  the  country,  the  world  refused  to  believe  it — and  rightly,  as  we 
shall  see. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  if  it  was  desired  to  make  "Servian"  Macedonia  a  reality 
instead  of  allowing  it  to  remain  what  it  was, — a  national  illusion  in  which  aspira- 
tions were  translated  into  accomplished  facts, — it  was  necessary  to  understand, 
however  little  one  might  approve,  the  tactics  of  the  government.  If  the  opposi- 
tion were  to  be  logical  they  must  renounce  their  national  view.  If  they  insisted 
upon  that,  they  must  admit  that  for  the  real  attainment  of  their  object  of  an 
ethnic  "unification,"  everything  remained  to  be  done.  To  admit  the  end  was  to  sanc- 
tion the  means,  i.  e.,  the  extermination,  or  at  least  the  elimination  of  alien  elements, 
and  above  all  of  the  Bulgarian  element.  It  was  the  existence  and  the  permeation 
of  these  elements  which  throughout  decades  constituted  the  essence  and,  so  to 
speak,  the  Gordian  knot  of  the  Macedonian  problem.  To  endeavor  to  escape 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  165 

from  the  problem  by  pretending  not  to  know  its  essential  elements,  was  to  elude 
difficulties  instead  of  solving  them. 

The  Servian  government  and  the  military  party  to  which  the  task  of  making 
an  end  of  the  difficulty  was  entrusted,  marched  direct  to  the  attainment  of  their 
end.  They  made,  on  a  truly  imposing  scale,  a  sociological  experiment  in  anima 
vili,  which  governments  and  nations  far  better  equipped  than  the  Servian  king- 
dom could  not  have  carried  through  with  success. 

We  have  seen  the  beginning  of  this  work  of  assimilation  through  terror. 
It  was  not  until  the  beginning  of  the  second  Balkan  war  gave  the  signal  for 
putting  everything  which  still  bore  the  Bulgarian  name  into  the  melting  pot,  that 
means  were  employed  to  carry  out  this  object  which  surpassed  anything  seen 
hitherto.  Let  us  look  first  at  the  steps  taken  by  the  Servian  government  against 
the  heads  of  the  National  church  in  Macedonia. 

The  members  of  the  Commission  were  profoundly  moved  by  the  depositions 
which  the  six  dignitaries  of  the  Bulgarian  church  were  good  enough  to  make 
before  them  during  their  visit  to  the  Holy  Synod  at  Sofia.  These  dignitaries 
were  the  Archbishops  Auxentious  of  Pelagonia  (Monastir-Bitolia),  Cosmas  of 
Dibra  (Debar),  Meletius  of  Veles,  Neophyte  of  Uskub  (Skopie),  Boris  of 
Okhrida,  and  the  Archbishop  of  Dibra's  Vicar,  Ilarion  Bishop  of  Nichava.  All 
the  prelates  came  to  enter  a  formal  protest  before  the  Russian  Ambassador  at 
Sofia  against  the  declaration  made  by  the  Servian  embassy  at  St.  Petersburg,  to 
the  effect  that  the  Bulgarian  Archbishops  of  Macedonia  had  themselves  asked  to 
leave  their  dioceses.  "If  the  Servian  government,"  they  said  in  their  written 
protest,  "really  never  intended  to  drive  us  forth  we  are  ready  to  return  as  soon 
as  it  may  be  possible  to  guard  the  flocks  whose  legitimate  pastors  we  are."1 

We  have  seen  that  the  Servian  and  Greek  governments  had  taken  all  pos- 
sible steps  to  isolate  these  pastors  from  their  flocks.  When  the  second  war  was 
about  to  break  out,  the  Bulgarian  Archbishops  regarded  themselves  as  prisoners 
within  their  Metropolis.  Their  visitors  were  watched,  questioned,  loaded  with 
blows  and  put  to  the  torture.  The  priests  were  not  even  allowed  to  see  their 
superiors  except  at  church,  and  divine  service  was  the  only  opportunity  which 
these  Archbishops  had  of  showing  themselves  to  such  persons  as  were  still  bold 
enough  to  enter  a  Bulgarian  church.  June  17/30,  the  day  on  which  the  outbreak 
of  hostilities  became  known,  was  the  term  of  their  residence  in  Macedonia. 
Each  in  turn,  they  eagerly  told  us  of  their  last  impressions.  Mr.  Neophyte  of 
Uskub  had,  on  the  evening  of  the  17/30,  been  shut  up  in  his  own  house,  and 
throughout  two  days  his  cook  alone  was  allowed  to  go  out  of  the  Metropolis 
to  purchase  food.  A  most  thorough  investigation  then  took  place,  after  which 
the  cook  herself  was  kept  prisoner  for  two  days.  The  Archbishop  had  no 
food  save  bread  passed  in  to  him  through  the  window  by  his  neighbors,  at  great 


1The  Servian  declaration  was  published  on  August  12/25,  in  the  St.  Petersburg 
paper  the  Novoye  Vremia.  The  reply  of  the  Archbishop  S.  E.  M.  Nekloudov  was  signed 
on  August  29/September  11,  at  Sofia. 


166  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

personal  risk  to  themselves.  The  cries  of  the  cook  drew  the  attention  of  the 
police,  and  she  was  once  more  allowed  to  go  out,  this  time  under  escort.  On 
June  24/July  7,  the  head  of  the  police  came  and  suggested  to  the  Archbishop 
that  he  should  go  to  Salonica,  his  personal  security  and  respect  for  his  inviola- 
bility being  guaranteed  (this,  as  we  shall  see,  was  not  superfluous).  Mr.  Neo- 
phyte refused;  he  was  there  by  the  will  of  the  people  and  there  he  intended  to 
remain.  "To  what  end,  since  you  can  not  exercise  your  functions?" — "For 
example,  in  my  private  capacity,  to  purchase  Turkish  houses,  if  you  please," 
he  replied.  An  hour  later  they  returned  to  the  charge.  The  prefect  regretted 
that  he  had  not  been  obeyed,  for  he  could  no  longer  answer  for  the  Archbishop's 
safety.  Finally,  in  the  evening  the  comedy  came  to  an  end ;  the  Archbishop  was 
made  to  read  an  indictment  under  twelve  heads.  He  had  said  prayers  for  four 
monarchs,  instead  of  for  King  Peter  alone ;  he  had  not  said  prayers  for  the 
Servian  Archbishop;  he  had  busied  himself  with  civil  matters,  ordering  a  priest 
from  the  village  to  come  and  see  him  in  the  Metropolis,  etc.  When  Mr.  Neo- 
phyte refused  to  sign,  he  was  given  two  hours  in  which  to  prepare  himself 
for  departure,  and  then  sent  through  Niche  to  Smederevo,  on  the  Danube, 
whence  he  departed  for  Bulgaria. 

At  Veles  the  officials  of  the  Archbishopric  were  arrested  and  the  archives 
were  ransacked  so  early  as  January  24/February  6.  The  Suffragan  Bishop  was 
obliged  to  leave  Veles  after  another  attack  on  the  Metropolis  on  February  4/17, 
in  which  an  official  of  the  Metropolis,  Mr.  Mikhilov,  was  beaten  and  maltreated 
to  such  an  extent  that  he  lost  consciousness.  On  March  28/ April  10,  Arch- 
bishop Meletius  returned  to  Veles.  He  was  closely  watched  by  the  police,  and 
during  his  whole  sojourn  at  Veles  he  was  only  allowed  to  see  three  priests  and 
one  instructor.  On  June  17/30.  he,  like  Mr.  Neophyte,  was  made  a  prisoner  in 
his  own  house.  On  June  24/July  7,  he  was  told  in  his  turn  to  leave  the  town. 
Thinking  that  this  was  a  temporary  measure,  he  agreed  on  condition  of  remaining 
at  Uskub  until  the  end  of  the  war.  He  signed  a  document  to  this  effect.  On 
the  25th  he  was  told  that  Mr.  Neophyte  had  left  Uskub  and  that  he  had  an  hour 
in  which  to  follow  him.  Mr.  Meletius  then  asked  for  a  written  order.  "The 
order  will  be  sent  to  you  at  the  frontier"  (this  was  a  lie).  We  will  say  nothing 
of  the  incidents  of  the  voyage.  Mr.  Meletius  rejoined  Mr.  Neophyte  at  Smede- 
revo, and  they  were  both  sent  through  Raduivatz  to  Roustchouk. 

The  other  three  Archbishops,  from  Monastir,  Okhrida  and  Dibra,  did  not 
get  off  so  easily.  They  were  sent  via  Salonica  to  Constantinople.  On  June 
17/30,  the  police  arrived,  accompanied  by  officers  and  soldiers,  to  arrest  the 
staff  of  the  Archbishopric  of  Monastir.  In  the  course  of  the  perquisition  which 
took  place,  rough  drafts  of  reports  of  acts  of  violence  committed  by  the  Servians 
on  the  Bulgarian  population  were  discovered,  addressed  to  the  Metropolis  at 
Salonica  and  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  at  Sofia.  Here  the  sequestration 
lasted  up  to  the  24th,  on  which  date  the  authorities  proceeded  to  a  sort  of  inquiry. 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  167 

Stress  was  laid  "on  relations  entered  into  with  a  foreign  government,"  and  the 
article  of  the  criminal  code  relative  to  this  form  of  crime,  prescribing  a  penalty 
of  twenty  years  imprisonment,  was  read  out.  After  having  thus  prepared  the 
ground,  the  authorities  returned  in  the  afternoon.  "You  will  start  tomorrow  for 
Bulgaria."  "Impossible,  it  is  too  soon."  "Papers  found  upon  you  have  annoyed 
the  military  authorities;  we  are  ordered  to  bring  you  before  a  court-martial. 
A  court-martial,  as  you  are  well  aware,  does  not  at  this  moment  always  observe 
the  laws;  it  often  judges  as  seems  fit  to  it  and  the  sentences  passed  are  executed 
on  the  spot ;  well,  to  save  you  from  such  a  fate,  the  prefect  is  being  so  kind 
as  to  make  himself  responsible  for  the  Archbishop's  departure  tomorrow  in  the 
morning."  "Agreed."  "First  of  all,  a  little  formality  has  to  be  gone  through. 
Here  is  the  draft  of  a  letter.  Be  so  good  as  to  transcribe  it  in  Bulgarian,  and 
state  over  your  own  name  that,  'owing  to  the  hostilities  between  Servia  and 
Bulgaria,  it  is  unpleasing  to  you  to  remain  at  Monastir.'  What?  You  refuse? 
Then  there  is  the  court-martial.  Let  us  see."  Mr.  Auxentius  signed,  though 
his  conscience  protested.  On  the  next  day  he  was  sent  to  Salonica,  and  thence 
made  his  way  to  Bulgaria  via  Constantinople  and  Odessa. 

The  case  of  Mr.  Boris  of  Okhrida  is  similar.  The  papers  found  in  the 
Metropolis  of  Monastir  also  included  reports  from  the  Archbishop  of  Okhrida 
to  the  Ministry  at  Sofia.  The  chief  commander  at  Uskub  was  immediately  in- 
formed of  this  and  telegraphed  the  order  for  the  Archbishop's  arrest.  On  June 
25/July  8.  he  was  roused  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  given  ten  minutes 
in  which  to  prepare  himself  to  depart  for  Monastir.  He  had  hardly  time  to 
take  a  shirt  and  an  overcoat  with  him.  At  Monastir  the.  same  prefect,  Mr. 
Douchane  Alimpits,  played  the  same  little  scene.  The  books  of  the  law  were 
brought,  Mr.  Boris  was  questioned,  a  protocol  was  read  to  him  in  which  the 
existence  of  a  revolutionary  committee,  preparing  a  rebellion  against  the  Ser- 
vian authorities,  was  inferred,  and  of  which  Mr.  Auxentius  was  accused  of 
being  the  president  and  Mr.  Boris  his  assistant.  Its  members  were  the  deacons 
and  inspectors  of  the  Archbishopric,  the  secretaries,  priests,  schoolmasters  and 
notables.  In  vain  did  Mr.  Boris  endeavor  to  prove  that  this  accusation  was 
simply  the  fruit  of  an  overheated  imagination.  Mr.  Alimpits  went  on  repeating 
accusations  of  "treason,"  deserving  the  penalty  of  death  by  shooting,  etc.  He 
then  displayed  a  most  active  desire  to  see  Mr.  Boris  saved  from  the  death  which 
threatened  him,  and  out  of  his  pocket  he  drew  a  .paper  written  in  Servian. 
Thereupon,  Mr.  Boris  read  the  sketch  of  a  declaration  somewhat  as  follows: 
On  the  outbreak  of  the  fratricidal  war  he  regarded  his  mission  as  fulfilled,  he 
renounced  of  his  own  free  will  the  dignity  of  exarchist  Metropolitan  of  the 
diocese  of  Okhrida,  and  asked  for  a  permit  to  Salonica  and  an  escort  to  accom- 
pany him  thither.  Mr.  Boris  replied  that  the  whole  Bulgarian  population  of 
the  diocese  had  chosen  him  as  their  spiritual  chief ;  he  could  not  renounce  his 
charge  on  any  pretext;  he  regarded  such  a  demand  as  an  outrage,  while  the 


168  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

declaration  could  not  be  valid  even  for  the  end  they  had  in  view.  The  prefect, 
'with  some,  annoyance,  repeated  the  order,  adding  that  it  was  the  desire  of  a 
higher  commander,  and  that  in  case  of  refusal  all  preparations  were  made  for 
bringing  the  Archbishop  before  a  court-martial  and  destroying  him  as  a  traitor 
-in  the  interests  of  the  State. 

"As  for  me,"  so  Mr.  Boris  stated  to  the  Commission,  "I  recalled  the  fate 
of  victims  who  had  been  slain  and  of  whom  no  traces  had  been  left;  the  death 
of  the  schoolmaster  Luteviev,  slain  by  the  soldiers  at  Prilepe,  after  the  banquet 
at  which  he  had  ventured  to  sing  the  praises  of  the  Bulgarian  army  and  propose 
the  health  of  King  Ferdinand;  of  Stamboldgiev,  a  citizen  of  Monastir,  who 
-was  sacrificed  with  his  whole  family.  Further,  I  recalled  the  inhumanity  of 
these  wretches,  who  compelled  their  own  Archbishop  Michael  to  leave  his  dio- 
cese. I  recalled  likewise  that  these  were  men  not  given  to  joking,  men  who 
tore  their  princes  and  their  kings  to  pieces,  and  *  *  *  with  profound  bit- 
terness, and  in  the  depths  of  my  soul  something  of  shame,  I  obeyed  the  order 
of  this  brute  of  a  captain,  an  order  which  I  could  not  recall."  *  *  *  On 
the  26th  Mr.  Boris  left  for  Salonica  and  rejoined  Mr.  Auxentius  there.  Two 
days  later  the  regent  of  the  Archbishopric  of  Dibra,  Bishop  Ilarion  of  Nichava, 
arrived  there  likewise.  He  was  less  fortunate  than  the  others,  for  at  Salonica 
he  was  imprisoned  and  remained  there  in  confinement  for  twenty-seven  days. 
The  reason  was  that  the  Greeks,  having  no  Bulgarian  bishops  among  their 
prisoners,  were  already  sorry  that  they  had  let  Messrs.  Auxentius  and  Boris 
go.  They  therefore  kept  Mr.  Ilarion  as  a  hostage,  and  did  not  set  him  at  liberty 
until  two  days  after  the  conclusion  of  peace. 

The  departure  of  the  bishops  was  the  end  of  the  exarchist  church  in  Mace- 
donia, the  end  of  the  official  and  recognized  existence  of  Bulgarian  nationality. 
The  powers  in  occupation  were  not  slow  in  drawing  conclusions  thus  harmonious 
with  their  desires.  We  know  in  fact  that  they  did  not  even  wait  for  their 
departure  to  set  to  work  on  the  complete  destruction  of  "Bulgarism"  in  Mace- 
donia. During  the  first  months  of  occupation,  September,  October,  and  even 
November,  it  was  still  possible  to  explain  what  happened  as  the  result  of  mis- 
understanding, and  as  the  abuse  of  power  by  irresponsible  elements  or  by  local 
authorities;  later,  however,  this  explanation  became  untenable.  From  the  com- 
mencement of  1913  we  have  to  deal  with  a  systematic  persecution  of  the  Bulga- 
rian nationality,  more  particularly  in  the  regions  assigned  by  the  treaty  of 
February  29.  1912,  to  Servia.  After  March,  at  which  date  it  became  clear 
that  Servia  was  not  going  to  secure  an  outlet  on  the  Adriatic  littoral,  and  after 
the  Bulgarians,  on  the  other  hand,  had  succeeded  in  taking  Adrianople  (March 
13/26),  there  was  no  longer  any  concealment  of  the  preparations  which  were 
being  made  for  the  complete  annexation  of  all  the  occupied  territories  in  Mace- 
donia. The  conclusion  of  peace  with  Turkey  (May  17/30),  and  the  speech 
delivered  by  Mr.  Pachitch  in  the  Skupshtina,  were  the  signal  for  beginning 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  169 

preparations  for  conflict  between  the  allies,  the  search  for  arms  held  by  suspects, 
the  call  to  the  colors  of  all  those  on  whom  it  was  thought  reliance  could  be 
placed.  Two  weeks  later,  every  one  in  Macedonia  was  saying  war  with  Bul- 
garia was  imminent,  and  acting  on  that  belief.  On  July  17/30  the  decisive 
moment  arrived. 

For  six  months,  while  waiting  for  the  allied  armies  to  take  up  arms,  the 
Servians  had  been  carrying  on  guerrilla  warfare  in  Macedonia,  side  by  side 
with  the  regular  army.  They  armed  their  old  bands,  whose  captains  and  soldiers 
wore  military  uniform.  At  Uskub,  a  central  committee  of  "national  defense/' 
with  branches  in  other  Macedonian  towns,  was  formed  side  by  side  with  the 
higher  command,  upon  the  arrival  of  the  troops.  The  population  of  Uskub 
called  their  station  behind  the  house  of  Weiss,  near  the  Russian  consulate,  "the 
black  house,"  from  the  name  of  the  league  itself,  "the  black  hand."1  The 
worst  crimes  were  committed  by  this  secret  organization,  known  to  all  the 
world  and  under  powerful  protection.  It  was  of  distinct  advantage  for  the 
regular  government  to  have  under  its  hand  an  irresponsible  power  which,  like 
this,  soon  became  all  powerful,  and  which  could  always  be  disowned  if  neces- 
sary. There  were  so  many  things  which  were  not  crimes,  but  which,  from  the 
point  of  view  of  Servian  assimilation,  were  worse  than  crimes.  Such,  for 
example,  as  being  too  influential  a  citizen,  wise  enough,  while  remaining  an 
ardent  Bulgarian  patriot,  not  to  contravene  the  orders  of  the  authority,  and 
whose  past  called  for  vengeance;  the  Bulgarian  flag,  a  business  house,  a  library, 
a  chemist  shop  kept  by  a  Bulgarian,  or  a  cafe,  not  amenable  to  the  prohibi- 
tion of  public  meetings,  etc.  The  man  was  taken,  one  evening  he  was  led 
into  the  "black  house"  and  there  beaten;  then  for  whole  months  he  lay  ill,  if 
indeed  he  did  not  disappear  completely.  Our  records  are  full  of  depositions 
which  throw  light  on  the  sinister  activities  of  these  legalized  brigands.  Un- 
happily all  the  names  can  not  be  cited.  *  *  *  Each  town  had  its  captain 
who  soon  acquired  fame.  At  Koumanovo  there  was  a  certain  Major  Voulovits 
and  his  assistant  Captain  Rankovits;  at  Veles  one  Voino  Popovits,  a  Vassa,  a 
Vanguel,  etc.  Where  complaints  were  made  to  the  regular  authorities,  they 
pretended  to  know  nothing  of  the  matter,  or  if  the  person  complaining  was 
obscure  they  punished  him.  If  he  were  a  personage,  as  for  example  in  the  case 
of  the  Archbishop  of  Veles,  his  complaint  was  met  by  sending  the  bands  from 
the  town  of  Veles  down  to  the  villages  *  *  *  only  to  replace  them  imme- 
diately afterwards  by  bands  from  Uskub. 

1The  Belgrade  Tribune  published  ("Serb.  Cor."  November  18/December  1)  revelations 
by  an  anonymous  officer  who  had  been  a  member  of  the  secret  organization  of  "the  black 
hand."  The  object  of  this  organization,  formed  on  the  principle  of  the  Carbonari,  was, 
according  to  him,  the  liberation  of  the  Servians  from  the  Turkish  yoke.  Later  on,  the 
comrade  by  whom  he  had  been  initiated,  told  him  that  owing  to  the  incapacity  of  the 
radical  government  it  was  necessary  to  replace  this  organization  by  another  which  was  to 
be  composed  of  members  of  other  political  parties.  He  clearly  regarded  the  "black  hand" 
as  being  formed  of  government  partisans. 


1/0  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

It  was  in  the  villages  that  the  activity  of  these  bands  assumed  its  most 
fatal  form.  In  the  towns  the  regular  authorities  kept  up  appearances  and  did 
not  concern  themselves  with  the  bandits;  but  lower  in  the  administrative  scale, 
in  the  village,  the  responsible  and  the  irresponsible  mingled  and  were  lost  in 
one  another.  This  was  the  easier  that  from  the  end  of  1912  on  the  administra- 
tive posts  in  the  villages  were  filled  by  men  of  the  type  already  described  in 
Chapter  I — paid  representatives  of  mational  minorities,  Serbo-manes,  or  Graeco- 
manes,  who  very  often  had  served  as  spies  with  the  Turks.  *  *  *  These 
people,  while  possessing  a  highly  intimate  knowledge  of  affairs,  had  their  own 
scores  to  wipe  off  *  *  *  they  had  only  to  utter  the  name  of  one  of  their 
enemies,  and  the  bands  arrest  him,  leave  him  to  find  a  ransom,  beat  him  or  even 
kill  him  with  impunity.  This  is  the  regime  of  anarchy  summed  up  in  a  letter 
published  in  the  Manchester  Guardian  and  given  below.1 

What  were  the  results  secured  by  this  implacable  system  at  the  time  of  the 
beginning  of  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  war?  A  Bulgarian  schoolmaster  has  de- 
scribed them  as  follows:  "Even  if  one  were  an  European  one  would  declare 
oneself  Servian,  if  one  were  alone,  without  support,  in  that  state  of  unrestrained 
brigandage,  fostered  by  the  legal  power."  The  end,  however,  was  not  yet 
attained,  and,  on  the  outbreak  of  the  second  war,  the  powers  in  occupation 
seized  the  opportunity  to  undertake  new  measures  of  repression  which  made 
an  end  of  the  open  existence  of  Bulgarian  nationality.  Progress  of  this  repres- 
sion in  different  parts  of  Macedonia  can  be  traced  in  the  depositions  taken  by 

1After  citing  the  Servian  ordinances  of  which  we  have  spoken  above  the  English 
paper  goes  on :  "This  is  the  theory  of  Servian  coercion.  The  practice  is  worse.  Servia 
is  not  a  country  with  a  large  educated  population.  It  has  indeed  some  80  per  cent  of 
illiterates.  It  has  to  supply  rulers  for  a  conquered  territory  which  almost  equals  it  in 
extent,  and  the  abler  men  regard  life  in  rural  Macedonia  as  exile.  Unworthy  agents  are 
invested  with  sovereign  powers.  The  consequences  are  vividly,  if  briefly,  described  in  a 
personal  letter  which  arrived  recently,  and  is  translated  below.  The  writer  is  a  man  of 
high  character  and  a  minister  of  religion — it  is  safer  not  to  indicate  his  church.  He  is  a 
native  of  the  country,  but  has  had  a  European  education,  and  is  not  himself  a  member 
of  the  persecuted  Bulgarian  community : 

The  situation  grows  more  and  more  unbearable  for  the  Bulgarians — a  perfect  hell. 
I  had  opportunities  of  talking  with  peasants  from  the  interior.  What  they  tell  us  makes 
one  shudder.  Every  group  of  four  or  five  villages  has  an  official  placed  over  it  who,  with 
six  or  seven  underlings,  men  of  disreputable  antecedents,  carries  out  perquisitions,  and 
on  the  pretext  of  searching  for  arms  steals  everything  that  is  worth  taking.  They  indulge 
in  flogging  and  robbery  and  violate  many  of  the  women  and  girls.  Tributes  under  the  form 
of  military  contributions  are  arbitrarily  imposed.  One  village  of  110  families  had  already 
been  fined  6,000  dinars  (£240)  and  now  it  has  to  pay  another  2,000  (£80).  The  priest  of 
the  village,  to  avoid  being  sent  into  exile,  has  had  to  pay  a  ransom  of  £T.50.  Poor  emi- 
grants returning  from  America  have  had  to  pay  from  ten  to  twenty  Napoleons  for  permission 
to  go  to  their  homes.  The  officials  and  officers  carry  out  wholesale  robberies  through  the 
customs  and  the  army  contracts.  The  police  is  all  powerful,  especially  the  secret  service. 
Bands  of  Servian  terrorists  (comitadjis)  recruited  by  the  government,  swarm  all  over  the 
country.  They  go  from  village  to  village,  and  woe  to  anyone  who  dares  to  refuse  them 
anything.  These  bands  have  a  free  hand  to  do  as  they  please,  in  order  to  Serbize  the  popu- 
lation. Shepherds  are  forbidden  to  drive  their  flocks  to  pasture  lest  (such  is  the  excuse) 
they  should  supply  the  Bulgarian  bands  with  food.  In  a  word  it  is  an  absolute  anarchy. 
We  shall  soon  have  a  famine  for  the  Serbs  have  taken  everything,  and  under  present  con- 
ditions no  one  can  earn  a  living.  Everyone  would  like  to  emigrate,  but  it  is  impossible  to 
get  permission  even  to  visit  a  neighboring  village." 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  171 

the  Commission  at  Sofia  from  Bulgarian  intellectuals,  refugees  from  Mace- 
donia, and  completed  by  the  reports  of  the  Bulgarian  ecclesiastical  authorities. 

It  was  to  be  expected  that  those  territories  in  Macedonia  which  were,  accord- 
ing to  the  treaty,  to  remain  Servian,  should  receive  the  most  serious  attention. 
Uskub,  Koumanovo,  Tetovo,  Gostivar,  in  a  word  the  whole  northeast  corner 
of  Macedonia,  was  to  feel  the  first  brunt  of  Serbization.  At  Koumanovo,  the 
priest  Yanev,  the  Archbishop's  vicar,  was  driven  out  on  March  11/24,  after  a 
violent  scene  with  one  of  those  Servian  chieftains  who  became  officers,  one 
Liouba  Voulvits.  He  pulled  the  priest  by  the  beard,  beat  him  and  finally  said 
to  him  that  "he  would  not  kill  him,  because  the  .Servians  were  a  civilized  nation, 
not  savages  like  the  Bulgarians."  "I  give  you  up  to  this  evening  to  clear  out  of 
Servian  territory,  otherwise,  dog,  you  shall  be  killed."  The  violence  used  by 
this  same  Voulvits  in  the  villages  whose  population  he  was  persuading  to  become 
Servian,  not  to  read  Bulgarian  books,  etc.,  may  be  passed  over  in  silence.  This 
same  Voulvits  employed  the  same  tactics  for  the  vicars  of  Kratovo  and  Palanka, 
and  for  the  population  of  the  villages.  As  a  result,  the  towns  of  Koumanovo, 
Palanka,  Kratovo,  Gostivar  and  the  surrounding  villages,  the  nehie  of  St. 
Nicolas,  and  the  villages  of  Uskub  and  Tetovo,  were  formally  proclaimed  Ser- 
vian at  the  moment  of  the  outbreak  of  the  war.  Schoolmasters  and  priests  who 
were  unwilling  to  submit  fled  and  took  refuge  in  Bulgaria.  The  only  places  left 
to  resist  were  the  towns  of  Uskub  and  Tetovo. 

To  terrorize  the  population  of  Tetovo  was  easy.  Tetovo  had  been  in  a 
state  of  panic  since  May  23/June  5.  The  municipal  authorities,  followed  by 
bands  and  a  crowd  of  Turkish  children,  harangued  the  inhabitants,  inviting  them 
to  become  "volunteers"  against  the  "worst  enemy"  of  the  Servian  state.  These 
processions  took  place  daily  for  three  days,  but  the  end  not  being  secured,  they 
were  followed  by  repression,  domiciliary  visitation  and  the  persecution  of  sus- 
pected citizens.  A  certain  Pano  Grantcharov,  or  Gherov,  tried  to  commit  suicide 
to  escape  being  entered  as  a  Servian  volunteer.  Greater  success  was  gained  in 
the  villages,  after  beating  the  inhabitants,  as  was  done  at  Stentche,  Volkovia, 
Jiltche,  Raotintsi,  Lechok.  On  May  29/June  11  the  priest  Anguelov,  the  Arch- 
bishop's vicar,  was  incarcerated  and  the  prefect  told  him  that  all  those  calling 
themselves  Bulgarians  were  regarded  as  rebels  against  the  authority.  They 
were  evidently  in  a  hurry  to  make  an  end  of  Bulgarism,  and  on  June  6/19,  all 
the  presidents  of  communes  and  all  village  priests  were  summoned  together 
in  a  Serbized  monastery.  The  representatives  of  Servian  temporal  and  ecclesias- 
tical power  were  present,  and  after  a  long  discourse  in  honor  of  the  historic 
glories  of  Servia,  it  was  proposed  to  the  assembled  priests  and  heads  of  com- 
munes, "that  they  should  become  Servian  and  send  a  telegram  to  King  Peter." 
A  single  priest  saved  himself  by  flight  and  two  village  priests  were  absent. 

At  Uskub,  under  the  eyes  of  the  foreign  consuls  and  in  the  presence  of 
"the  higher  commander,"  difficulties  were  met  with  in  the  execution  of  official 


172  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Serbization.  But  "the  black  hand"  supplied  what  was  wanting  in  official  activity, 
and  several  of  its  exploits  are  known  to  the  Commission.1  The  state  of  mind 
of  the  soldiers  quartered  at  Uskub  may  be  illustrated  by  a  little  story. 

On  March  7/20,  towards  6  o'clock  in  the  evening,  a  Bulgarian,  Demetrius 
Gheorghiev,  was  standing  at  the  door  of  his  house  on  the  Vardar  bridge.  A 
little  distance  off,  at  the  door  of  another  house,  there  was  a  Servian  officer, 
Major  Boutchits.  At  this  moment  the  Bulgarian  General  Pitrikov  entered  the 
town,  and  his  orderly,  one  Igno,  passing  along  the  road,  greeted  Dimtche.  Mr. 
Boutchits  at  once  makes  a  sign  to  him  to  draw  near,  pushes  him  into  the  corridor 
of  his  house,  kicks  him  with  his  feet,  turns  him  twice  over  on  the  ground,  cracks 
his  skull  and  finally  is  trying  to  suffocate  him,  when  his  father  coming  up  with 
soldiers  saved  his  life.  All  the  time  Mr.  Boutchits  accompanied  his  blows  with 
cynical  oaths  upon  his  "mortal  enemies,"  the  Bulgarians. 

In  January  the  Uskub  government  made  a  first  attempt  at  patriotic  statistics. 
The  sub-prefect,  Boro  Milanovits,  ordered  the  heads  of  the  communes  to  enter 
the  Bulgarian  population  as  Servian  on  pain  of  fine  and  imprisonment.  This 
time  the  schoolmasters  and  priests  were  also  invited  to  proclaim  themselves 
Servian.  But  the  matter  did  not  go  off  smoothly.  On  March  16  the  peasants 
of  the  village  of  Nerezi  complained  to  Archbishop  Neophyte.  When  he  spoke 
to  Tserovits,  the  prefect,  the  latter  pretended  that  the  thing  was  being  done  by 
"stupid  officials"  for  whom  he  excused  himself  before  the  Archbishop.  He 
then  summoned  the  village  priest  and  forbade  him  to  visit  his  parishioners  until 
he  had  obtained  the  permission  of  the  Servian  Archbishop.  The  villagers  of 
Nerezi  were  arrested  as  they  came  out  of  the  Bulgarian  Metropolis  and  were 
cast  into  prison.  From  this  time  on  the  peasants  from  the  villages  were 
afraid  to  go  to  their  Archbishop.  Next,  the  same  thing  was  tried  with  the 
inhabitants  of  the  town;  terrorization  went  on  throughout  Passion  week,  and 
it  was  hoped  that  the  result  would  be  that  they  would  be  too  much  frightened 
to  come  to  the  Bulgarian  church  on  Easter  day.  The  Archbishop  again  com- 
plained at  the  Russian  consulate  and  at  the  prefecture,  and  the  Bulgarian  popu- 
lation, that  is  to  say  the  great  majority  of  the  Christian  population  at  Uskub, 
took  advantage  of  the  last  opportunity  which  it  was  to  have  of  going  to  its  own 
church  and  taking  part  in  the  religious  procession  of  the  second  Sunday.  Re- 
sistance on  the  part  of  priests  and  schoolmasters  in  the  town  went  on  despite 
everv  kind  of  persecution  up  to  the  end  of  May.  On  May  11/24,  the  national 
festival  of  St.  Cyril  and  St.  Methodius,  the  population  disregarded  the  order 
forbidding  shops  to  be  closed.  A  number  of  domiciliary  perquisitions  took  place 
on  the  morrow,  with  the  object  of  discovering  a  new  revolutionary  organization. 

At  the  end  of  May  opportunity  for  a  new  demonstration  .of  independence 
was  afforded  by  the  enrolling  of  volunteers.  As  at  Tetovo,  the  enrolment  took 

alt  was  this  band  which  beat  Methodius.    See  Chapter  I.  t^. 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  173 

place  by  force  and  on  May  26/June  8,  all  those  enrolled  were  gathered  together 
at  Uskub.  Almost  all  the  "volunteers"  told  the  military  authorities  that  they 
had  been  brought  there  by  force.  Their  relations  came  with  them  and  made 
statements  before  the  consuls.  Some  people  were  fined  and  imprisoned,  but 
the  government  was  obliged  to  abandon  the  use  of  force  and  from  the  whole 
prefecture  at  Uskub  there  remained  but  fifteen  or  sixteen  genuine  "volunteers." 
In  the  course  of  the  following  days  there  arrived  at  Uskub  volunteers  from 
Tetovo,  Gostivar,  Kirtchevo,  Dibra  and  Okhrida,  and  Albanians  from  Katchanik, 
in  all  some  500.  All  these  new  comers  heard  what  had  happened  and  thereupon 
declared  that  they  too  were  unwilling  to  serve.  They  were  all  sent  back  except 
some  Bulgarians,  who  being  accused  of  having  stirred  the  volunteers  to  resist, 
were  shot. 

On  the  heels  of  these  events  there  followed  the  fatal  day  of  June  17/30. 
The  arrests  began  at  midday  and  continued  until  the  evening.  On  the  18th  some 
200  schoolmasters,  officials  of  the  Metropolis,  priests,  notables  and  other  sus- 
pected citizens  were  imprisoned.  Ninety-nine  selected  from  among  them  were 
incarcerated  in  the  Mitrovitza  prison,  the  most  remote  spot  possible  from  the 
theater  of  the  war.  At  Uskub  arrests  went  on  continually.  There  were  three 
hundred  selected  prisoners,  some  of  whom  came  from  the  villages.  Some  were 
beaten,  others  paid  their  guards  to  escape  beating.  At  Tetovo,  at  the  same  time, 
as  many  as  200  persons  were  arrested;  at  Koumanovo — a  pacified  town — there 
were  150  arrests,  while  some  hundred  of  those  arrested  at  Palanka  were  sent 
to  the  prison  of  Prechovo.  Three  villagers  from  Palanka,  unable  to  march, 
were  killed  by  the  soldiers  on  the  Koumanovo  road,  like  true  prisoners  of  war, — 
Balkan  war. 

Now  at  last  it  seemed  that  victory  might  be  celebrated.  On  June  25/July 
8,  after  the  departure  of  Archbishop  Neophyte,  several  priests  and  notables  were 
called  upon  to  proclaim  themselves  Servians,  and  when  they  gave  an  evasive 
reply,  they  were  "permitted"  to  hold  a  meeting  in  the  court  of  the  Church  of 
St.  Demetrius.  It  was  a  trap.  Fifty  or  sixty  persons  arrived,  but  instead  of 
being  allowed  freedom  to  discuss  together,  they  were  addressed  by  the  chaplain 
attached  to  the  "higher  command,"  who  ended  by  inviting  them  to  sign  a  decla- 
ration which  he  brought  out  of  his  pocket.  With  full  hearts  and  tears  in  their 
eyes  they  signed.  The  authorities  summoned  the  public  criers,  who  proclaimed 
in  the  streets  that  a  reconciliation  had  taken  place,  that  the  exarchists  had  recog-- 
nized  Servian  nationality  and  the  Servian  church.  On  the  morrow  the  Cathedral 
church  of  the  Holy  Virgin  was  thrown  open  and  the  Servian  and  Bulgarian 
priests  thanked  God  together  for  reuniting  them  in  a  single  nation  and  a  single 
church.  The  Belgrade  papers  published  congratulations  and  the  official  agency 
communicated  the  news  to  the  foreign  press. 

By  way  of  completing  the  victory  thus  gained,  an  emissary  was  sent,  under 
pretext  of  taking  clothes  to  his  relations,  to  Mitrovitza  to  persuade  the  notables 


174  REPORT    OF    THE    BALKAN    COMMISSION 

under  arrest  there  also  to  proclaim  themselves  Servians.  They  were  given  Ser- 
vian papers  to  read,  full  of  glorifications  over  the  event.  Many  hesitated  and 
they  grew  to  be  a  majority.  The  soil  thus  prepared,  a  clerk  attached  to  the 
military  command  appeared  before  the  prisoners.  In  his  hand  he  had  a  list  of 
the  "Uskub  Bulgarizers,"  but  he  said  he  was  not  sure  of  it  and  wanted  to  verify 
it.  Clearly  there  was  some  mistake,  for  the  whole  body  had  been  noted  down 
as  "Bulgarizers,"  according  to  the  declaration  of  the  first  to  whom  the  question 
had  been  put.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was  only  the  schoolmasters,  the  officials 
and  a  few  town  dwellers  who  were  "Bulgarians."  The  others  were  readv  to 
declare  themselves  Servians.  They  were  given  another  week  for  reflection. 
Then  the  same  clerk  brought  them  a  declaration  to  sign,  in  which  they  made 
formal  renunciation  of  the  exarchy  and  asked  to  be  set  at  liberty.  Most  of 
them  signed;  those  who  entered  themselves  as  Bulgarians  were  declared  rebels 
and  convicted  agitators.  Nevertheless,  both  classes  were  kept  in  prison  until 
the  conclusion  of  the  treaty  of  Bucharest,  July  29/ August  11.  On  their  return 
to  Uskub,  the  schoolmasters  were  invited  to  remain  in  the  Servian  service,  or  in 
the  event  of  refusal  to  go  to  Bulgaria.  Forty-two  signed  a  declaration  to  the 
effect  that  they  preferred  to  be  sent  back,  and  by  August  6/19  they  had  arrived 
at  Sofia,  coming  by  way  of  Niche  and  Pirotus.  A  few  days  later  they  were 
followed  by  two  other  bodies  of  schoolmasters  from  Uskub.  The  Serbization 
of  the  Uskub  prefecture  was  an  accomplished  fact. 

At  Veles — the  first  object  of  Servian  pretensions  "beyond  the  frontier" 
agreed  upon  by  the  treaty — we  find  the  same  methods  employed  and  the  same 
stages  in  the  process  of  Serbization.  The  name  of  the  captain  pf  the  legalized 
band  who  chased  the  successor  of  Archbishop  Meletius  from  Veles  on  Feb- 
ruary 4/17  after  the  usual  savage  scene,  was  Voino  Popovits,  and  that  of  his 
assistant,  Douchane  Dimitrievits.  An  interim,  lasting  down  to  the  turn  of  Mele- 
tius on  March  28/ April  10,  was  employed  in  seizing  the  Bulgarian  monasteries 
and  churches  in  the  town.  At  the  end  of  February  the  schoolmasters  were 
invited  to  become  Servian  officials,  and  when  they  refused,  they  were  threatened 
with  persecution.  The  local  "black  hand"  made  one  or  two  examples,  and  the 
schoolmasters  were  compelled  to  stay  at  home  or  at  least  to  refrain  from  ex- 
changing greetings  in  the  streets,  on  pain  of  being  maltreated.  Here  on  the 
eve  of  Easter  the  local  bands  sent  into  the  villages  were  replaced  by  bands  from 
'Uskub,  which  the  consuls  had  asked  to  have  sent  back.  In  order  to  spoil  the 
national  festival  of  St.  Cyril  and  St.  Methodius  (May  11/24),  the  administrative 
authorities  ordered  the  population  to  repair  the  streets.  The  inhabitants  of 
Veles  did  not  obey;  disregarding  the  wishes  of  the  authorities  they  shut  their 
shops  to  celebrate  the  festival.1 

On  June  17/30  a  particularly  large  number  of  arrests  took  place  at  Veles. 
All  the  schoolmasters  of  the  town  arid  villages  were  arrested,  as  well  as  all 


1This  is  perhaps  the  origin  of  Article  23  of  the  Ordinances  of  September  21. 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  175 

the  priests  and  officials  of  the  Metropolis,  and  between  150  and  200  inhabitants 
of  the  village.  This  was  a  form  of  recognition  of  the  strength  of  national 
feeling  in  this  little  town,  which  had  been  one  of  the  most  active  centers  of  the 
Bulgarian  national  movement,  ever  since  its  beginning.  Martyrs  too  were  not 
lacking.  On  June  18,  in  the  evening,  a  priest,  John  Avramov,  was  dragged  out 
of  prison  and  taken  with  five  young  men  from  the  Koinik  quarter  into  the  "black 
house."  The  priest's  throat  was  cut  and  his  body  thrown  over  the  bridge 
into  the  Vardar.  The  current  carried  his  corpse  down  and  threw  it  up  by  the 
side  of  the  stream,  where  near  the  shore,  the  water  is  almost  stagnant.  His 
beard  had  been  plucked  out.  Nobody  dared  to  take  up  or  bury  the  body.  On 
the  morrow  it  had  disappeared.  The  five  young  men  were  killed  together  and 
their  relations  failed  to  find  their  bodies. 

These  measures  may  serve  as  typical.  On  the  28th  two  priests,  D.  Antonov 
and  G.  Mikhilov,  were  set  at  liberty  with  a  number  of  notables.  The  intention 
here  was  quite  plain.  They  were  assembled  in  a  sort  of  gathering  which  passed 
a  resolution  renouncing  the  exarchy,  recognizing  the  Servian  church,  and  de- 
claring themselves  Servians.  This  declaration  was  followed  by  a  solemn  service. 
A  month  later,  on  July  25/August  7,  all  the  inhabitants  and  schoolmasters  re- 
maining in  prison  were  likewise  set  free,  after  declaring  themselves  Servians. 
On  August  5/18,  a  proposal  was  made  at  the  prefecture  to  all  the  schoolmasters 
and  mistresses,  that  they  should  either  become  Servian  teachers  or  leave  the 
town.  With  a  single  exception  (Mr.  Brachnarov)  they  all  consented. 

At  Monastir  (Bitolia),  the  chief  place  of  the  vilayet,  and  likewise  coveted 
by  the  Servians  "beyond"  the  frontier,  the  counting  of  the  population  was  begun 
by  the  middle  of  December.  Special  commissions  were  sent  into  the  villages 
with  the  object  of  persuading  the  population  to  declare  itself  Servian,  by  forcing 
the  churches  and  the  schools  to  become  Servian.  After  that  the  disarmament 
of  the  population  followed. 

From  the  second  half  of  February  on  the  situation  grew  worse.  Bronislav 
Nouchits,  the  well  known  Servian  dramatist,  who  was  the  prefect,  was  regarded 
as  too  moderate,  and  replaced  by  someone  more  sympathetic  with  the  views  of 
the  military  party  and  of  "the  black  hand."  Acts  of  violence  against  individuals 
and  the  arbitrary  imposition  of  fines  became  of  more  frequent  occurrence.  The 
Metropolis  felt  its  isolation  growing.  A  panic  was  created  in  the  population 
by  the  case  of  the  Stambouldjiev  family,  which  was  massacred  within  doors 
without  the  discovery  of  any  traces  of  the  criminals.1  The  persecution  of  Bul- 
garians became  more  violent  after  the  declaration  made  by  Mr.  Pbchitch. 
Individual  priests  and  schoolmasters  were  compelled  to  yield  and  to  declare 
themselves  Servians.  Those  who  were  recalcitrant  were  dealt  with  by  the 
method  of  "disarmament,"  accompanied  by  domiciliary  perquisitions  and  torture. 

In  the  course  of  the  days  June  17  to  19  (June  30  to  July  2)  more  than 

1See  above  Mr.  Boris'  reference  to  this  case. 


176  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

600  persons  were  arrested  at  Monastir.  They  were  kept  in  strict  confinement 
until  July  13/26,  when  the  Bulgarian  defeat  had  become  perfectly  well  known. 
Then  the  less  turbulent  among  the  peasants  and  artizans  began  to  be  set  free, 
on  condition  of  taking  no  part  in  national  agitation.  At  the  same  time  the  less 
prominent  inhabitants  were  invited,  according  to  the  quarters  in  which  they 
lived,  to  sign  the  declaration,  the  text  of  which  was  afterwards  published  in  an 
official  Servian  paper  in  Bitolia,  Opchtinske  Novine.  The  text,  which  may 
serve  as  a  specimen  of  what  was  asked  of  the  Bulgarian  population  and  of  what 
it  was  endeavored  to  make  them  believe,  is  as  follows: 

In  order  that,  once  for  all,  the  question  of  our  national  feelings  may 
be  firmly  established,  and  that  a  serious  error  may,  at  the  same  time,  be 
wholly  refuted,  we,  Slavs  from  Bitolia,  hitherto  attached  to  the  exarchy, 
do  today,  being  assembled  in  the  orthodox  church  of  St.  Nedelia,  state  as 
follows:  (1)  That  we  are  familiar  from  history  that  we  have  been  Ser- 
vians since  ancient  times,  and  that  the  Turks  conquered  the  countries  which 
we  now  inhabit  from  the  Servians  five  and  a  half  centuries  ago.  (2)  That 
there  is  no  difference  either  in  nationality  or  in  faith,  or  in  language,  or 
in  customs  between  us  and  the  Servians,  as  is  proved  by  many  remembrances 
and  by  the  Servian  schools,  which  were  the  only  ones  in  existence  in  these 
lands  up  to  the  time  of  the  Turco-Servian  war  of  1876-78.  (3)  That  our 
ancestors  were,  and  that  we  are,  called  Servians,  but  that  under  the  recent 
influence  of  Bulgarian  propaganda,  and  above  all  under  the  terror  caused 
by  the  comitodjis,  we  have,  in  quite  recent  times,  begun  to  turn  our  eyes 
to  the  Bulgarians,  in  the  hope  that,  thanks  to  their  preponderance  in  what 
was  once  the  Turkish  kingdom,  they  would  be  better  able  than  the  Servians 
to  free  us  from  our  servitude.  (4)  That  in  the  last  war  with  the  Turks, 
the  Bulgarians  instead  of  assisting  and  freeing  us,  appropriated  Thrace 
and  liberated  non-Slav  populations.  (5)  That  the  Servians  have,  by  super- 
human efforts  and  enormous  sacrifices,  taken  these  lands  unassisted  and 
so  put  an  end  to  our  servitude.  (6)  That  both  before  and  after  the  war 
the  Servians  treated  us  really  as  their  brothers,  while  on  the  contrary  the 
Bulgarians  were  at  pains  to  separate  us  from  our  liberators.  (7)  That  on 
the  17th  of  last  month  the  Bulgarians  attacked  the  Servian  army,  which 
shed  its  blood  for  them  before  Adrianople;  an  attack  for  which  the  whole 
civilized  world  condemns  them.  (8)  That  the  Bulgarians  desired  to  expose 
the  people  of  these  countries  to  new  misfortunes  and  to  destruction  by  their 
attempt  at  sending  hither  bands  of  brigands  to  burn  the  villages  and  pillage 
the  people.  Wherefore,  we  declare  our  entire  solidarity  with  our  Servian 
brothers  and  liberators :  with  them  we  will  work  in  the  future,  shoulder  to 
shoulder,  to  strengthen  our  country — Greater  Servia. 

When  the  signatures  even  of  the  most  obscure  and  timid  of  the  inhabitants 
had  thus  been  collected,  with  the  assistance  of  the  police,  the  commander  sum- 
moned a  meeting  of  notables.  An  old  merchant,  Piperkov  by  name,  when 
invited  to  sign,  replied:  "I  am  an  old  man,  sixty  years  of  age.  My  father 
always  told  me  that  my  grandfather  was  Bulgarian.  Therefore  we  do  not  con- 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  177 

sent  to  sign,  and  nothing  but  force  can  compel  us  to  do  so."  The  commander 
then  gave  him  twenty-four  hours  for  reflection.  They  met  to  the  number  of 
eleven  in  a  private  house;  two  of  the  number  were  inclined  to  submit  to  the 
Servian  power.  The  other  nine  remained  inflexible  and  were  arrested.  Their 
wives  went  to  the  Russian  and  Austrian  consulate?,  whereupon  they  were  again 
set  at  liberty  and  given  a  new  period  of  twenty-four  hours  in  which  to  sign. 
They  then  did  sign  (using  their  Bulgarian  names,  ending  in  j)v,  not  in  itz, 
which  was  in  itself  an  act  of  defiance)  a  declaration  drawn  up  by  themselves, 
in  which  they  described  themselves  as  "Ottoman  subjects  free  from  Turkish 
rule  by  the  victorious  Servian  army  who  would,  in  the  future,  remain  faithful 
to  their  liberators,  whose  subjects  they  regarded  themselves."  The  individual 
who  told  us  this  story  at  Salonica,  added  that  these  unfortunate  men  could  not 
at  this  moment  admit  the  possibility  that  Monastir  might  become  Servian:  they 
were  as  yet  entirely  ignorant  of  the  issue  of  the  war. 

On  July  10/23,  the  schoolmasters  were  called  before  the  commander,  and 
by  order  of  the  general  staff  the  proposition  was  made  to  them  with  which  we 
are  already  familiar,  namely,  to  renounce  the  exarchy  and  become  Servian 
officials  by  at  once  signing  individual  requests  to  this  effect.  They  were  prom- 
ised higher  salaries  and  assured  that  the  years  they  had  already  served  would  be 
taken  into  account  in  estimating  their  pension.  The  schoolmasters  declared  that 
they  were  unwilling  to  go  against  their  consciences ;  they  asked  to  be  allowed  to 
live  as  private  individuals  and  Servian  subjects  until  the  political  situation  of  the 
country  was  decided.  They  were  told  that  in  that  case  a  circular  from  the 
general  staff  would  order  their  expatriation  on  the  next  day.  Their  statements 
that  they  were  natives  of  the  country,  that  most  of  them  were  married  and  had 
children,  that  they  had  property  and  other  local  ties,  and  that  the  question  of  the 
expatriation  was  one  for  their  own  private  judgment,  were  entirely  disregarded. 
Here  as  elsewhere  the  irrevocable  decision  had  gone  forth, — whosoever  calls 
himself  a  Bulgarian  must  betake  himself  to  Bulgaria.  The  final  argument  pro- 
duced by  the  authorities  was  as  follows :  "The  exarchy  pays  you,  that  is  to  say 
Bulgaria  pays  you;  we  are  enemies  of  Bulgaria  and  that  is  why  we  treat  you 
as  agents  provocateurs  of  an  enemy  power."  No  attention  was  paid  to  the 
protest  that  the  salaries  of  most  of  the  schoolmasters  had  been  paid  by  religious 
communities.  On  July  13/26  they  were  escorted,  to  the  number  of  thirty, 
through  Prilepe  and  Veles,  and  thence  through  Uskub,  where  they  were  joined 
by  the  other  protesting  teachers  from  Prilepe  (seventeen)  and  from  Kesen  (six), 
to  Smederevo.  On  July  28/August  10  an  Austrian  Danube  steamer  landed 
them  at  Lom  (Bulgaria).  It  is  unnecessary  to  lay  stress  on  their  sufferings 
upon  the  way. 

At  Monastir  the  end  was  gained.  On  July  7/20,  divine  service  was  held 
for  the  solemn  celebration  of  "unity,  concord  and  love,"  in  which  service  the 
Bulgarian  priests  who  had  just  renounced  their  exarchy'  officiated  jointly  with 


178  REPORT    OF    THE    BALKAN    COMMISSION 

the  Servian  clergy.  After  the  service  a  meeting  took  place  at  which  Mr.  Tavet- 
kovits,  the  moving  spirit  of  Servian  administration  in  Monastir,  made  a  speech 
on  the  reconciliation  of  the  people  and  their  return  to  the  bosom  of  Servia. 
After  his  speech  the  declaration  with  which  we  are  familiar  was  read  out,  and 
the  meeting  terminated  amid  cries  of  "Long  live  Servia!  Long  live  the  Servian 
army!  Long  live  King  Peter!  Long  live  Prince  Alexander,  the  liberator  of 
Monastir!"  . 

There  is  little  to  add  about  the  other  towns  in  the  Monastir  prefecture. 
We  have  in  our  possession  an  interesting  document  about  Prilepe,  "the  town 
of  Mark  Kralievits,"  the  legendary  Servian  hero,  in  the  shape  of  a  proclamation 
issued  by  the  commander  of  the  place,  Mr.  Michael  Menadovits,  dated  March 
6/19.  This  shows  that  Mr.  Menadovits  had  lost  any  illusion  as  to  the  "love  and 
concord,"  of  the  liberated  population.  Prilepe,  it  should  be  said,  was,  like 
Veles,  one  of  the  strongholds  of  Bulgarism  in  Macedonia,  and  so  Mr.  Menadovits 
learned  to  his  cost.  "I  can  no  longer  recognize,"  he  writes,  "the  people  of 
Prilepe  of  whom  I  was  so  proud!  Agitators  and  enemies  of  the  Servian  people 
(who  are  well  known  to  me)  have  stirred  up  such  a  ferment  among  the  peaceable 
and  honorable  citizens  of  this  town,  that  I  no  longer  know  my  old  Prilepeans. 
What!  Do  you  repay  my  love  for  you  by  plots  against  my  life?  Is  this  your 
gratitude  for  my  kindness  that  you  conspire  in  your  houses  to  cut  my  head  from 
my  shoulders?  My  patience  is  at  an  end.  The  Bulgarian  army  whose  arrival 
you  await  so  impatiently  from  day  to  day,  is  not  coming.  You  will  be  sorry 
to  hear  that  it  is  never  coming ;  do  you  understand  ?  That  I  can  assure  you  of,  with 
all  the  weight  of  my  name  and  my  position !  Even  to  wish  for  it  is  a  disgrace. 
If  you  want  to  know  to  whom  Prilepe  belongs,  go  up  on  to  the  heights  of 
Monastir,  to  the  mountain  of  Babonna,  Bakarno  Goumno,  and  ask  your  ques- 
tion of  the  graves  of  the  sons  of  Servia  which  are  there.  *  *  *  I  address 
myself  for  the  last  time  to  the  honorable  men  of  Prilepe:  Remember  that  the 
secret  society  called  Nodnykra  is  a  more  dangerous  enemy  to  you  than  to  me. 
To  you,  cowardly  agitators,  I  cry,  'do  not  play  with  the  lives  of  peaceful  citi- 
zens I  *  *  *  Massacre  Servian  soldiers  and  officers  if  you  like,  but  remember 
that  the  payment  for  their  deaths  is  a  far  more  terrible  death !' " 

The  Servian  commander  of  Resen  (Resna)  was  equally  dissatisfied  with 
the  state  of  feeling  in  that  town,  which  was  a  republican  center,  and  the  birth- 
place of  the  Turkish  Major  Niazi-bey,  who  started  the  revolution  in  1908  there. 
On  December  9/22,  1912,  he  had  called  the  notables  of  Resen  before  him  to 
accuse  them  of  being  disloyal  subjects,  and  of  fomenting  discord  between  rival 
nationalities.  He  added  that  it  was  in  his  power  to  have  them  all  killed  and 
hanged  without  distinction,  great  and  small,  and  even  old  men  with  white  beards 
(by  which  he  meant  the  Archbishop's  vicar)  if  they  did  not  improve  and  hand 
over  to  him  the  Bulgarian  propagandist  leaflets.  (The  leaflets  in  question  were 
the  declaration  of  war  by  King  Ferdinand  and  the  proclamation  by  the  Bulgarian 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  179 

Red  Cross  which  had  been  left  with  the  vicar  by  some  travelers  from  Bulgaria.) 
On  December  14/27,  all  the  schoolmasters  of  the  towns  and  villages  were 
summoned,  and  told  by  the  commander  that  "everything  taken  by  the  Servian 
army  would  be  kept  by  Servia,"  and  that  in  future  their  salaries  would  be  paid 
them  from  the  Public  Instruction  office  at  Belgrade.  In  reply  to  the  question, 
"Were  there  no  private  schools  in  the  Servian  kingdom?"  the  commander  at 
first  said  nothing.  Then,  "Pardieu,"  said  he,  "I  do  not  know,  but  you  may  be 
quite  at  ease  about  what  I  told  you,  since  Turkey  no  longer  exists."  On  March 
15/28,  they  began  taking  the  census,  in  which  there  was  no  heading  "Bulgarian." 
Special  commissioners  went  from  house  to  house,  meeting  resistance  everywhere. 
In  the  lists  the  Bulgarian  designation  ending  in  ov  was  successfully  preserved 
and  only  five  households  entered  themselves  as  Servian.  Since,  however,  the 
official  list  included  no  heading  but  "Servian,"  the  papers  published  the  figures 
as  being  the  totals  of  the  Servian  population.  "Disarmament"  began  in  July, 
accompanied  by  the  usual  violence.  The  numerous  examples  of  such  violence 
found  in  our  documents  may  be  passed  over  in  silence. 

On  June  17/30  between  forty  and  fifty  citizens  and  250  and  300  villagers 
were  arrested  at  Resen,  and  kept  in  confinement  for  a  month.  A  village  priest 
was  offered  his  liberty,  on  condition  of  praying  in  the  church  that  God  might 
give  victory  to  the  Servians.  After  a  few  moments'  hesitation,  the  priest  replied 
to  his  interlocutor,  "I  can  not  pray  to  God  except  for  the  end  of  the  war." 
On  July  10/23,  the  schoolmasters  were  brought  out  of  prison  and  offered  the 
usual  alternative — "Sign  a  request  to  be  nominated  as  Servian  officials,  or  you 
shall  be  expatriated  as  Bulgarian  agitators  and  spies."  Some  signed,  the  others 
first  hesitated  and  then  withdrew  their  request,  after  a  categorical  protest  against 
expatriation  had  been  made  by  a  professor.  He  declared  that  it  was  illegal,  as 
applied  to  native  persons  who  had  committed  no  criminal  act  and  possessed  a 
perfect  right  to  live  at  home  as  private  individuals.  He  with  five  others  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  dispatched  to  Uskub.  On  July  11/24,  the  priests  of  the  town 
and  the  villages  were  compelled  to  renounce  the  exarchy  and  recognize  the 
Archbishop  of  Belgrade  as  their  spiritual  head.  On  July  26/August  18  some 
notables  were  summoned,  to  whom  the  declaration  signed  at  Monastir  was  read 
out.  They  protested  against  it.  "The  exarchy,"  they  said,  "is  not  a  form  of 
propaganda;  the  exarchy  is  the  work  of  the  people,  who  constituted  their 
church  at  a  representative  assembly  of  all  the  towns  in  Macedonia.  The  Bulga- 
rian comitadjis  did  not  teach  us  to  be  Bulgarians,  but  the  Servian  and  Greek 
comitadjis  do  claim  to  teach  us  to  change  our  nationality."  A  new  form  of 
declaration  was  then  proposed:  "Seeing  that  the  exarchy  and  the  orthodox 
church  are  one  and  the  same,  we  declare  ourselves  Servians."  When  the  notables 
again  refused  their  approval  they  were  all  sent  to  prison  and  dispatched  to 
Salonica,  "in  order,"  so  they  were  told,  "that  the  Greeks  may  massacre  you." 
There  they  spent  eighteen  days  under  arrest,  in  a  little  room  with  eighty  other 
Bulgarians.  They  were  then  sent  to  Bulgaria  via  Constantinople  and  Bourgas. 


180  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Krouchevo  (the  third  town  of  the  Monastir  prefecture)  shows  the  same 
extortions,  under  color  of  requisitions,  and  the  same  acts  of  violence  and  domi- 
ciliary perquisitions  under  pretext  of  a  search  for  arms.  On  the  17/30,  the 
Servian  soldiery  left  the  town  and  their  place  was  taken  by  a  band  with  one 
Vanguel  of  Uskub  at  its  head.  Since  the  reputation  of  the  acts  of  violence 
committed  by  the  band  had  gone  before  it,  five  former  Bulgarian  comitadjis, 
living  in  the  town,  formed  a  band  of  their  own  and  took  to  the  hills.  On 
June  19/July  2  all  the  notables  were  arrested.  The  prison  was  in  the  basement 
of  the  government  building,  and  through  the  bars  of  their  windows  the  captives 
overheard  the  sub-prefect,  Evto  Bekrits,  delivering  a  harangue  from  the  balcony 
to  a  newly  formed  band  of  vlach  (Roumanian)  and  Grecizing  (Romanise) 
inhabitants,  on  June  22.  "In  the  absence  of  the  army  you  are  authorized  to  act. 
Since  Bulgaria  has  declared  war,  you  are  authorized  to  do  as  you  please  with 
anyone  calling  himself  a  Bulgarian."  On  the  next  day,  Vantcho  logov,  one  of 
these  recruits,  beat  a  Bulgarian  merchant,  Demetrius  Krestev,  in  the  open  mar- 
ket because  the  latter  had  a  Bulgarian  sign.  On  the  merchant's  complaint  the 
sub-prefect  issued  a  notice  ordering  the  removal  within  twenty-four  hours  of 
all  signs  in  the  Bulgarian  language:  they  were  ordered,  on  pain  of  court- 
martial,  to  be  replaced  by  Servian  signs.  (The  same  facts  are  repeated  every- 
where, at  Uskub,  Veles,  Prilepe,  etc.)  We  need  not  mention  the  other  acts  of 
violence  committed  under  pretext  of  domiciliary  perquisition.  Even  women 
were  beaten  and  imprisoned  for  calling  themselves  Bulgarian.  On  June  29 / 
July  12,  the  birthday  of  King  Peter,  all  the  prisoners  were  brought  into  the  gov- 
ernment hall.  The  sub-prefect  promised  them  an  amnesty  if  they  would  agree 
to  admit  that  they  were  Servians.  Two  of  them  replied  in  the  name  of  all  the 
others  that  it  was  solely  as  Bulgarians  that  they  could  be  loyal  subjects  of 
Servia  and  useful  to  the  State.  They  were  immediately  taken  back  to  prison 
where  they  remained  for  another  month.  On  July  17,  Vantcho  Belouvtcheto, 
chieftain  of  the  Bulgarian  band,  was  killed  by  the  soldiers  of  the  Servian  band, 
after  two  hours  of  real  fighting.  His  head  was  cut  off  and  carried  in  triumph 
all  round  Krouchevo.  Towards  evening  it  was  put  on  the  threshold  of  the 
prison,  the  door  having  been  thrown  open  for  the  purpose.  "So  shall  heads  of 
all  those  who  call  themselves  Bulgarian  be  treated,"  said  the  sub-prefect.  On 
the  next  day  he  summoned  the  Archbishop's  vicar,  and  ordered  him  to  sign  the 
written  declaration.  The  vicar,  terror  stricken,  signed  without  reading,  and  so 
did  the  other  priests.  Two  schoolmasters  followed  their  example,  but  two  others 
refused.  An  hour  later,  they  were  sent  under  escort  via  Prilepe  to  Uskub, 
where  they  remained  for  two  more  weeks  imprisoned,  until  peace  was  con- 
cluded. On  August  4/17,  they  were  expatriated;  their  families  meanwhile  re- 
maining in  Macedonia. 

Even  greater  resistance  was  met  with  in  the  assimilation  of  the  places  on 
the  western  frontier  of  Macedonia,  at  Okhrida  and  Dibra  (Debar)  on  the  borders 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  181 

of  Albania.  We  find  here,  as  everywhere  else,  the  ordinary  measures  of  "Ser- 
bization" — the  closing  of  schools,  disarmament,  invitations  to  schoolmasters 
to  become  Servian  officials,  nomination  of  "Serbomanes,"  "Grecomanes,"  and 
vlachs,  as  village  headmen,  orders  to  the  clergy  of  obedience  to  the  Servian 
Archbishop,  acts  of  violence  against  influential  individuals,  prohibition  of 
transit,  multiplication  of  requisitions,  forged  signatures  to  declarations  and 
patriotic  telegrams,  the  organization  of  special  bands,  military  executions  in  the 
villages  and  so  forth.  The  numerous  arrests  effected  on  June  17/30,  extended 
impartially  to  all  classes.  At  Okhrida,  too,  the  threat  of  expatriation  was  suc- 
cessfully used  to  compel  priests  and  professors  collectively  to  renounce  the 
exarchy.  The  imprisoned  professors  were  compelled  to  accept  their  salary  from 
the  Servian  Ministry  of  Public  Instruction  and  to  sign  its  receipts.  Yet,  up  to 
the  middle  of  September,  the  spirit  of  the  people  was  not  altogether  broken. 
At  Debar,  external  submission  hardly  concealed  feelings  of  revolt.  The 
exarchist  clergy  (forty  priests)  in  the  month  of  May  formally  renounced  the 
exarchy  by  a  solemn  process  of  retractation,  followed  by  an  oath  upon  the  Tes- 
tament. As  at  Resen,  the  schoolmasters  proved  more  recalcitrant.  They  were 
arrested  on  June  17/29  and  kept  in  prison  until  the  middle  of  July.  Their 
ultimate  fate  is  unknown  to  us.  We  do,  however,  know  that  during  the  months 
of  August  and  September,  the  idea  of  resistance  remained  alive  in  the  popu- 
lation. There  was  a  great  deal  of  talk  of  a  scheme  of  "union"  with  the  Holy 
See,  as  a  means  of  preserving  nationality  after  the  abolition  of  the  exarchist 
church.  This  idea  appears  to  have  originated  spontaneously  in  the  minds  of 
the  population  of  Monastir.  Preparations  were  also  being  made  for  armed 
resistance,  with  the  definite  design  for  claiming  Macedonian  autonomy.  The 
Servian  government  laid  great  stress  on  the  fact  that  the  Bulgarian  comitadjis, 
under  the  direction  of  the  voyevodas,  Milan  Matov,  Stephen  Khodjo,  Peter 
Tchaoumev  and  Kristo  Traitchev,  had  taken  no  part  in  the  Albanian  insurrection. 
In  fact  we  know  from  an  interesting  story  told  by  one  of  the  initiated,  and  pub- 
lished in  a  Bulgarian  paper,1  that  Mr.  Matov  had  organized  a  band  at  El  Bassan 
and  prepared  an  appeal  to  the  Bulgarians  and  the  Moslems  in  conjunction  with 
the  Albanians.  Owing  to  the  refusal  of  the  Albanian  government  this  appeal 
failed,  but  Matov  had  behind  him  private  assistance  and  support.  He  was  in 
communication  with  the  chieftain  Tchaoumev  at  Okhrida,  and  with  the  Al- 
banian and  Bulgarian  population  in  the  villages.  The  little  Servian  garrisons, 
taken  by  surprise,  had  to  beat  a  retreat,  and  for  several  days  Okhrida,  Struga 
and  Debar  were  in  the  insurgents'  hands.  There  was  even  talk  of  organizing  a 
provisional  Macedonian  government  at  Okhrida. 

These  events  were  bound  to  react  on  the  state  of  feeling  of  the  populations 
of  Western  Macedonia.    But  at  Prisrend  and  Diakovo,  as  well  as  at  Debar  and 

iSee  Izgreve  of  October  24/November  6— "The  truth  about  the  Albano-Macedonian  in- 
surrection." 


182  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

at  Okhrida,  the  Servians  soon  made  an  end  of  the  Albanian  insurrection.  The 
Albanian  population  to  the  number  of  some  25,000  souls  took  flight  after  defeat. 
Those  who  remained  underwent  the  familiar  treatment  at  the  hands  of  the  Serv- 
ians. The  Bulgarians  also  suffered  severely.  All  the  notables  were  imprisoned 
or  shot.  A  number  of  mixed  Albanian  and  Bulgarian  villages  were  burned  in 
the  regions  of  Dolna-Reka,  Gorna-Reka  and  Golo  Urdo.  After  this  the  official 
"classification"  of  Macedonia  might  be  regarded  as  completed. 

In  August,  when  the  Commission  went  through  Belgrade  (August  10/23, 
to  12/25)  the  struggle  was  still  going  on  as  we  see.  In  the  occupied  territories 
the  Bulgarian  population  was  still  contending,  and  at  Belgrade  Mr.  Pachitch 
was  still  unwilling  to  yield  to  the  military  party  on  the  question  of  Macedonian 
administration.  Since  the  crisis  was  not  settled,  the  Commission  might  prove 
an  inconvenient  witness.  This  was  probably  one  of  the  reasons  why  it  was  not 
desired  at  Belgrade  that  the  Commission  should  move  about  freely.  This  ap- 
prehension was  betrayed  when  a  Belgrade  paper  accused  a  member  of  the  Com- 
mission of  seeking  to  distract  the  Commission  from  its  principal  object  by  arrang- 
ing for  them  to  visit  Uskub,  Veles,  Mitrovitsa,  Prisrend,  Monastir,  Tetovo,  etc.1 

True,  it  was  stated  that  there  was  no  general  objection  to  visits  from 
strangers.  Only  they  must  be  controlled.  In  our  manuscript  chronicle  of 
events  in  Macedonia,  we  find  under  the  date  of  February  10,  a  remark  by  the 
Vicar  of  Koumanovo:  "Yesterday  evening  three  Europeans,  Englishmen,  ar- 
rived in  our  town.  According  to  the  Servians  they  were  sent  to  study  the  con- 
dition of  the  population.  They  were  put  up  by  the  vicar  of  the  Servian  Arch- 
bishop. Today  they  made  a  tour  of  the  town  and  went  to  see  the  authorities. 
A  number  of  Bulgarians  (among  them  the  wife  and  brothers  of  Orde  Yovtchev, 
who  has  disappeared)  endeavored  to  interview  them,  but  the  government  ad- 
mitted nobody.  Only  a  body  of  Turks  were  received  and  questioned  as  to  the 
actual  conditions  of  their  life.  Having  been  terrorized  in  advance,  they  stated 
that  they  'lived  well.' "  Sufficient  honor  has  been  done  the  Commission  to 
admit  that  it  was  not  so  easily  satisfied  as  these  simple  tourists. 

Is  the  work  of  false  pacification,  as  revealed  by  our  documents,  definitive 

^Balkan,  August  13/26.  The  Commission  had  not  had  any  such  intention,  because  the 
time  at  its  disposal  and  the  itinerary  drawn  up  before  its  departure  from  Paris  did  not 
allow  of  it.  As  regards  Mr.  Pachitch,  it  should  be  noted  that  the  most  substantial  reason 
given,  by  him,  for  his  refusal  to  the  Commission,  was  that  "the  army  would  resent"  the 
presence  of  one  member  in  the  interior.  The  campaign  directed  against  the  presence  of 
this  member  of  the  Commission  is  still  going  on  in  the  Servian  press.  The  Paris  corre- 
spondent of  the  Politika,  of  Belgrade,  reports  in  the  issue  of  November  11/24,  that  this 
member  had  offered  a  sum  of  fr.  40,000  to  the  Russian  photographer,  Tchernov,  in  the 
name  of  the  Carnegie  Endowment,  for  the  purchase  of  photographs  in  his  possession  of 
'Bulgarian  atrocities,"  in  order  to  withdraw  the  said  photographs  from  publicity.  This 
offer  Mr.  Tchernov  was  alleged  to  have  refused.  The  truth  is  that  two  members  of  the 
Commission  went  to  see  the  photographs  which  Mr.  Tchernov  exhibited  in  the  Grand  hotel 
Paris,  as  evidence  not  of  Bulgarian  "atrocities,"  but  of  "war  atrocities"  in  general.  They 
found  the  photographs  very  interesting  and  quite  authentic,  and  ordered  some  of  them  for 
the  Commission,  which  Mr.  Tchernov  agreed  to  print  at  a  stipulated  price.  Such  is  the 
manner  in  which  falsehoods  are  spread. 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  183 

or  lasting?    A  doubt  is  suggested  by  the  ordinances  of  September  21.    All  that  the 
Commission  has  since  learned  confirms  such  doubts. 

True,  the  Servians  are  optimistic,  to  judge  from  the  articles  which  have 
appeared  in  their  press.  This  optimism,  however,  is  sui  generis,  and  satisfied 
with  very  little.  Take  the  patriotic  and  militarist  paper  Piemont,  which  rejoices 
over  the  condition  of  affairs  in  Chtipe  at  the  end  of  October : 

In  Chtipe  things  are  like  old  Servia.  People  are  getting  busier  and 
go  about  and  work  freely,  there  is  no  longer  anyone  who  calls  himself  a 
Bulgarian,  and  if  you  happen  to  say  the  word  Bulgarian  before  the  citizens 
you  are  seized  and  sworn  at.  Everywhere  in  the  streets  people  sing  only 
Servian  songs  and  dance  Servian  dances.  Vicentius,  Archbishop  of  Uskub, 
who  arrived  on  the  5th/18th,  was  received  at  the  Bregalnitsa  bridge  by 
the  population  of  all  creeds,  Turks  and  Jews.  In  the  last  few  days  the  first 
betrothals  have  taken  place  according  to  our  custom;  our  photographer, 
Kritcharevits,  has  got  married;  the  orchestra  of  the  Fourteenth  Regiment 
played  at  the  wedding  amid  indescribable  rejoicings.  The  young  women 
of  Chtipe  are  pretty ;  they  are  a  trifle  prudish,  but  that  fault  will  mend. 

Here  is  another  correspondence  sent  from  Monastir  to  Vienna  via  Salonica 
on  October  14: 

The  town  of  Monastir  is  almost  surrounded  by  a  military  cordon. 
The  measures  taken  by  the  Servians  in  apprehension  of  any  movement 
among  the  Bulgarians  grow  more  and  more  Draconian  *  *  *  The 
authorities  desire  to  compel  the  Bulgarians  to  send  their  children  to  the 
Servian  schools  (the  Bulgarian  schools  are  closed).  To  this  end  police- 
men go  from  house  to  house  warning  people  that  those  who  do  not  send 
their  children  to  the  Servian  schools  will  be  fined — the  fines  being,  fr.  100 
for  those  who  do  not  send  their  children  to  school  at  all,  fr.  200  for  those  who 
send  them  to  non-Servian  schools  (there  are  some  vlach  (Roumanian) 
schools),  fr.  600  for  those  sending  them  abroad  without  the  knowledge  of 
the  authorities.  Young  people  between  nineteen  and  thirty  are  not  allowed 
to  leave  the  country. 

Here  is  another  correspondence  from  Monastir,  published  in  the  Bulgarian 
paper  Mir,  of  November  29/December  12: 

On  November  12/25,  fifty-one  Bulgarian  peasants  were  killed  in  the 
Boumba  quarter,  and  another  at  Tchenguel-Karakole,  by  the  authorities  them- 
selves. The  policemen  make  a  practice  of  pillaging  the  peasants  as  they 
return  from  making  their  sales  and  purchases  at  market.  A  number  of 
peasants  from  the  villages  of  Ostriltsi,  Ivanovtsi,  Rouvtsi,  Bala-Arkava, 
Vocheni,  Borandi,  have  disappeared.  At  the  village  of  Krouchevo  five 
persons  (whose  names  are  given)  were  beaten;  at  Ostriltsi  nine;  at  Ivan- 
ovtsi, eight;  at  Berantsi,  nine;  at  Sredi,  seven;  at  Obrachani,  four;  at 
Padilo,  three,  etc. 


184  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

At  Okhrida,  after  the  retreat  of  the  comitadjis  at  the  beginning  of  October 
(see  above)  a  panic  seized  the.  whole  population.  There  was  no  village  with- 
out its  victims,  chief  among  them  being  priests  and  schoolmasters.  In  the  be- 
ginning of  October  alone  three  priests,  five  teachers  and  some  150  villagers, 
Bulgarian  citizens,  were  killed,  without  counting  500  Turks  and  Albanians. 
Whole  quarters  were  destroyed  on  the  plea  that  they  belonged  to  rebels;  the 
houses  of  the  families  of  the  chieftains  Tchaoulev,  and  Matov,  were  among  those 
destroyed.  All  the  young  men  of  any  intelligence,  to  the  number  of  fifty,  were 
imprisoned.  They  were  tortured  at  least  once  a  day,  and  often  left  without  food 
for  three  days.  All  the  priests  were  arrested  because  on  December  14  and  15, 
they  had  prayed  in  the  churches  for  King  Ferdinand  and  Archbishop  Boris; 
when  interrogated  they  replied  that  such  was  Tchaoulev's  order.1 

At  last  the  Servians  themselves  are  beginning  to  admit  that  things  are  not 
going  as  they  should.  Here,  as  in  Bulgaria,  the  organs  of  the  opposition  press 
lay  the  blame  and  the  responsibility  on  the  personnel  of  the  administration. 
The  Balkan  declares  that  this  personnel  is  in  no  way  different  from  that  of  the 
Turkish  regime.  The  government  press  makes  excuses  but  can  not  deny  the 
fact:  "There  are  not  enough  trained  officials.  The  conditions  of  life  in  the 
conquered  countries  are  too  difficult  to  call  forth  a  sufficient  supply  of  competent 
candidates."2  The  real  difficulty,  however,  the  state  of  feeling  of  a  population 
subjugated  but  not  subdued — was  not  remedied.  Measures  were  taken  to  com- 
bat such  opposition  as  was  left.  They  were  not  quite  sure  of  the  clergy,  still 
less  of  the  teachers  who  had  taken  the  oath.  In  Belgrade  itself  the  Commission 
heard  the  question  discussed  whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  send  the  Bul- 
garian officials,  although  they  had  submitted,  into  really  Servian  regions,  such 
as  Metohia  and  Kosovo  Pole.  The  favorable  impression  to  be  produced  outside 
by  these  quasi-voluntary  acts  of  submission,  which  also  were  useful  in  assisting 
to  hide  the  complete  lack  of  candidates  for  administrative  posts,  led  at  the 
moment  to  the  simple  registration  of  Bulgarian  officials  among  the  Servian 
staff.  Later,  conditions  changed.  On  October  19/November  1,  a  Bulgarian 
paper  speaks  of  eighty-eight  schoolmasters  who  had  come  from  old  Servia 
(Kosovo  and  Metohia)  and  were  nominated  to  former  Bulgarian  schools 
(twenty-one  to  Uskub,  nineteen  to  Monastir,  seven  to  Prilepe,  ten  to  Koumanovo, 
six  to  Okhrida  and  twenty-five  to  Veles).  On  November  11/24,  the  Serbische 
Correspondents  speaks  of  200  professorial  candidates  from  Croatia  and  Hungary, 
ready  to  take  their  places  in  "new  Servia."  If  reliance  can  be  placed  on  the 
correspondence  published  in  the  Bulgarian  press,  the  attendance  at  the  new 
schools  is  not  great,  despite  the  fines  for  absence.  Nevertheless,  the  number 
of  Servian  schools  increased,  although  they  were  inferior  to  the  Bulgarian 

JCorrespondence  of  October  16/29  in  the  Politika,  and  that  of  December  19/Tanuarv 
2  in  the  Vozrajdame. 

2See  the  controversy  between  the  Balkan,  the  Pravda,  the  Novosti,  the  Odjek  and  even 
ie  f  \emont,  on  the  one  hand,  and,  on  the  other,  the  Sammouprava  in  December. 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  185 

schools,  both  in  number  and  in  quality.1  According  to  official  Servian  statistics 
(Serbe  Corr.  November  29/December  12),  there  are  now  395  schools  where 
there  were  193,  with  350  teachers,  where  there  were  240.  What  is  being  taken 
over  is  the  Bulgarian  inheritance.  At  Uskub  a  training  school  for  teachers  has 
even  been  opened.  But  among  the  380  students,  260  come  from  Old  Servia  and 
only  120  from  the  conquered  territory,  according  to  the  Servian  authority. 

The  most  serious  difficulty  which  remains  to  be  overcome,  is  the  state  of 
mind  of  the  population.  The  latest  reports  in  our  possession  do  not  show  any 
improvement.  The  same  steps  continue  to  be  taken  for  dealing  with  discon- 
tent, which  is  general,  by  means  of  terrorism,  which  is  not  growing  less.  The 
Mir  of  December  23/January  5,  contains  an  Albanian  correspondence,  from 
which  we  quote: 

At  Kritchovo,  150  peasants  were  beaten  in  the  presence  of  the  author- 
ities: seventeen  persons  killed  by  blows  and  the  corpses  burned.  The 
others  too  were  seriously  wounded  and  thrown  into  the  stable  without  any 
sort  of  medical  aid.  At  Novo-Selo  five  peasants  were  beaten  by  the  Servian 
gendarmes.  At  Plasnitsa  we  found  six  peasants  killed  by  a  Servian  patrol, 
forty  peasants  killed  in  October,  five  houses  burned.  Gvayace  was  attacked 
by  a  Servian  band,  forty  peasants  were  killed  and  their  corpses  thrown  into 
the  wells.  In  October,  in  the  same  village,  200  peasants  were  killed  and 
800  Turkish  books  carried  off.  Toukhine  was  pillaged  by  a  Servian  band. 
At  the  same  time  a  Servian  theater  was  being  opened  at  Uskub,  and  the 
Minister  of  Public  Instruction  intrusted  Professor  Hits  to  collect  popular 
songs  in  the  annexed  territories;  and  it  was  cited  by  the  Minister  for  the 
Interior  as  proving  that  "the  fullest  liberty  of  conscience  was  granted  to 
all  confessions  in  the  practice  of  their  religious  observances,"  that  the 
Moslems  were  permitted  to  hunt  on  their  feast  days  (Serbische  Corre- 
spondenz). 

The  most  elementary  condition  to  be  fulfilled  before  toleration  towards  a 
conquered  country  can  be  claimed,  is  clearly  that  formulated  by  the  Greek  dele- 
gates at  the  peace  conference  at  Bucharest,  and  extended  to  all  belligerents  by  the 
Bulgarian  delegates,  but  rejected  because  of  the  refusal  of  the  Servian  delegate: 
"Whereas  war  against  the  Ottoman  Empire  has  been  undertaken  by  Bulgaria, 
Greece,  Montenegro  and  Servia,  in  order  to  guarantee  to  all  the  nationalities  the 
conditions  of  free  development;  whereas  it  is  impossible  that  this  noble  inspira- 
tion should  not  have  survived  the  events  that  have  since  separated  the  former 
allies  *  *  *  Bulgaria,  Greece,  Montenegro  and  Servia  recognize  with  the 
newly  annexed  territories  autonomy  for  the  religious  communities  and  freedom 
for  the  schools."2  Had  this  condition  been  accepted,  we  might  indeed  have  be- 


1See  the  interesting  report  by  a  Servian  professor  Mr.  T.  M.  Yakovlevits,  on  "The  con- 
dition of  Bulgarian  schools  at  Macedonia  in  comparison  with  Servian  schools,"  published 
October  16/29  in  the  Serbska  Zastava. 

2See  the  Proces-verbal  No.  10  of  the  Bucharest  Conference  session  July  26/August 
8,  1913.  Likewise  rejected  was  the  proposal  of  the  representative  of  the  United  States  at 


186  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

lieved  in  "the  establishment  of  friendly  relations  between  the  four  States,"  and 
the  possibility  of  "insuring  to  the  populations  called  upon  to  dwell  together  an  era 
of  justice  and  wide  toleration."  The  Servian  delegate,  however,  replied  that  "the 
question,  in  so  far  as  it  concerns  new  Servian  subjects,  is  regulated  by  the  con- 
stitution of  the  Servian  kingdom" — a  statement  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  not 
true.  The  results  of  this  refusal  have  been  seen.  It  has  been  easier  to  conquer 
than  it  will  be  to  keep  the  fruits  of  conquest.  The  Servian  press  is  full  of  appre- 
hension as  to  the  true  sentiments  of  the  conquered  population,  and  is  constantly 
envisaging  some  rising  danger  from  outside.  Today  it  is  Albania  preparing  new 
disorders  for  the  spring;  yesterday  the  Bulgarian  comitadjis  were  crossing  the 
Roumanian  frontier  with  false  passports  to  get  somewhere  in  Macedonia. 
(Serbische  Correspondents,  November  26/December  11).  Another  day  America 
is  allowing  Macedonian  conspirators  from  Tetovo  or  Doiran  to  organize  com- 
mittees for  the  recovery  of  the  autonomy  of  their  enslaved  country  (Tregoinnski 
Glasnik)  in  New  York,  Chicago,  Portland  or  St.  Louis.  A  new  emigration  is  at 
hand  with  its  army  of  between  15,000  and  20,000  Macedonian  workmen,  who 
can  not  be  brought  under  any  ordinances.  The  Pravda  is  evidently  right  in 
thinking  that  it  will  not  be  necessary  to  wait  twenty-five  years  for  a  Zabern.  But, 
we  repeat,  the  condition  is  "autonomy  for  the  religious  communities  and  freedom 
for  the  schools," — a  return,  that  is  to  say,  to  the  minimum  of  liberalism  which  did 
up  to  the  last  few  years  exist  in  fact,  guaranteed  by  international  treaties,  even 
in  old  absolutist  Turkey. 

3.     GREEK  MACEDONIA 

The  documents  in  the  possession  of  the  Commission  are  less  complete  for 
Greek  than  for  Servian  Macedonia.  But  the  data  at  its  disposal  are  sufficient 
to  establish  the  conclusion  that  here  too  the  same  situation  is  repeated,  down  to 
the  smallest  detail,  of  the  assimilation  of  the  Bulgarian  population  in  Southern 
Macedonia  (Vodena,  Castoria,  Fiorina).  The  procedure  is  quite  analogous  to 
that  employed  to  assimilate  the  same  population  in  the  north.  As  to  the  alterna- 
tive system,  which  consists  in  the  extermination  of  the  Moslem  population,  it 
was  repeated  on  the  eastern  frontier  of  Macedonia,  on  the  confines  of  Thrace, 
like  the  analogous  Servian  system  on  the  western  frontier  on  the  confines  of 
Albania.  The  only  difference  is  that  the  two  methods  of  assimilation  and  exter- 
mination are  here  pursued  with  even  more  system  and  even  less  humanitarian 
sentiment.  Is  it  indeed  a  "human"  race,  this  "dirty"  (sale)  Slav?  They  are 
not  anthropi.  They  are  arkoudi — bears.  The  word  recurs  frequently  in  our 
depositions,  and  corresponds  perfectly  to  the  Bulgarophage,  sentiment  that  was 

Bucharest,  Mr.  Jackson,  to  insert  into  the  peace  treaty  a  provision  according  full  civil  and 
religious  liberty  to  the  inhabitants  of  any  territory  subjected  to  the  suzerainty  of  any  one  of 
the  five  Powers  or  which  might  be  transferred  from  the  jurisdiction  of  one  Power  to  that 
of  another,  "with  the  same  recourse  to  'the  public  law  of  the  Constitutional  States  repre- 
sented" which  would  have  afforded  the  consecration  of  long  usage." 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  187 

consciously  being  developed  in  the  army  and  among  the  populace  by  means  of 
patriotic  verse  and  popular  pictures,  of  which  specimens  will  be  found  in  the 
Appendix. 

We  begin  with  Salonica,  the  natural  center  of  Greek  Macedonia.  The  Com- 
mission received  no  great  facilities  on  the  part  of  the  Greek  government  for 
inquiry  into  the  facts  that  interested  them  at  Salonica.  All  the  same,  the  mem- 
bers took  advantage  of  the  fact  that  they  were  free  to  come  and  go  in  the  town, 
to  investigate  the  available  sources  of  information.  True,  the  indigenous  popu- 
lation with  some  few  exceptions  hid  away,  the  Greeks  out  of  hostility  towards 
the  Commission  (as  their  articles  in  the  local  press  well  show)  ;  the  Jews  from 
fear  of  responsibility.  The  foreigners  remained  and  although  the  very  name  of 
Bulgaria  had  been  proscribed,  there  were  still  some  belated  Bulgarians.  From 
Bulgarian  governesses  about  to  embark  the  next  day,  a  member  of  the  Com- 
mission learned  the  details  of  the  days,  June  30,  July  1  (June  17,  18),  of  the 
Bulgarian  downfall,  which  took  place  soon  after  the  beginning  of  the  second 
Balkan  war.  Later  the  Commission  was  able  to  test  their  evidence  by  that  of 
others;  on  its  return  the  highly  important  written  evidence  of  the  Bulgarian 
prisoners  liberated  at  the  end  of  the  year  1913,  was  added  to  the  oral  testimonies 
and  confirmed  and  corroborated  it.  The  most  important  place  among  the  later 
testimonies  belongs  to  the  recollections  of  the  commander  of  the  Bulgarian  gar- 
rison at  Salonica,  Major  Velisar  Lazarov,  which  appeared  in  the  Bulgarian  paper 
Politico  in  November. 

Without  lingering  over  the  numerous  incidents  that  took  place  between  the 
actual  masters  of  the  town  and  those  who  aspired  to  take  their  place,  we  may 
draw  the  general  conclusion  that  relations  between  the  Greek  and  Bulgarian 
military  living  side  by  side  in  Salonica,  were  extremely  strained  during  the  whole 
time  of  common  occupation.  After  April,  1913,  there  were  but  three  companies 
of  the  Fourteenth  Macedonian  regiment  whose  status  was  regulated  in  May  by 
a  special  convention  between  the  two  governments.  This  little  garrison  was 
quartered  in  some  dozen  houses  situated  in  the  different  quarters  of  the  town, 
Hamidie  street,  Midhat-pasha  street,  Feisli  street,  etc.  Every  day  as  many  as 
sixteen  pickets  were  set  to  guard  the  official  institutions  and  the  lodgings  of 
the  high  military,  civil  and  ecclesiastical  Bulgarian  officials.  The  Bulgarian 
military  force  was  thus  distributed  in  the  eastern  portion  of  the  town. 

On  June  17/30,  General  Kessaptchiev,  representing  the  Bulgarian  govern- 
ment at  the  Greek  quarter  general,  left  Salonica  because  of  the  opening  of  hos- 
tilities. Some  army  officers  who  accompanied  him  to  the  station  were  per- 
suaded that  the  Greeks  were  preparing  an  attack.  Mr.  Lazarov  then  went  in  all 
haste  from  the  station  to  the  Bulgarian  General  Staff,  opposite  St.  Sofia,  to  warn 
his  officers  and  men.  Thence  he  went  to  Feisli  street,  to  the  Turkish  school- 
house,  where  most  of  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  were  quartered.  A  letter  from 
the  Greek  commander,  General  Calaris,  followed  him  thither.  The  general  in- 


188  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

formed  him  that  hostilities  had  been  opened  by  the  Bulgarian  army  and  proposed 
to  him  to  leave  Salonica  with  his  garrison  within  an  hour,  after  giving  up  his 
arms.  At  the  expiration  of  this  delay,  the  Bulgarian  army  in  Salonica  would 
be  regarded  as  hostile  and  treated  accordingly. 

General  Kessaptchiev's  train  started  at  one  o'clock.  Mr.  Lazarov  received 
Calaris's  letter  before  three.  Half  an  hour  before,  at  2.30,  the  Greek  soldiers 
had  begun  the  attack  on  the  Bulgarian  pickets.  Mr.  Lazarov  wrote  his  reply 
amid  shots.  In  it  he  asked  permission  to  communicate  with  his  superiors  by 
telegraph.  At  five  o'clock,  after  two  hours  of  steady  firing,  the  Greeks  gave 
the  order  to  cease.  There  had  been  a  misunderstanding.  Then  the  French 
consul,  Mr.  Jocelin,  arrives  and  wishes  to  speak  with  Mr.  Lazarov.  "Very 
good,"  is  the  reply  of  Mr.  Calaris.  After  five  minutes  waiting  this  is  the  reply 
that  came:  "The  conditions  are  refused."  Mr.  Jocelin  departed.  The  fusillade 
began  again  on  both  sides.  The  French  consul  had  been  told  that  Mr.  Lazarov 
would  not  see  him.  The  last  hope  of  preventing  the  catastrophe  disappeared. 
Towards  evening  cannon  and  shell  began  to  speak.  Night  came  on;  an  hour 
after  midnight  the  Greeks  again  ordered,  "Give  up  arms !"  Mr.  Lazarov's 
reply  was  the  same.  He  asked  permission  to  communicate  with  his  superiors. 
Fighting  began  again,  with  redoubled  fury.  Many  houses  were  in  flames,  some 
were  destroyed  by  cannon,  about  eighty  peaceable  citizens  and  nearly  a  hundred 
Bulgarian  soldiers  were  killed.  The  night  ended  and  Mr.  Lazarov  himself  this 
time  offered  to  surrender  on  condition  of  keeping  arms  (without  bayonets), 
baggage  and  money.  The  conditions  were  accepted;  then  on  the  pretext  that 
the  Bulgarian  soldiers  might  have  tried  to  keep  the  bayonets,  refused.  The  Bul- 
garian soldiery  were  arrested  unconditionally. 

On  the  morning  of  June  18/July  1,  two  merchant  steamers,  poetically  named 
Mariette  Ralli  and  Catherine,  were  ready  to  convey  the  prisoners  to  Greek  for- 
tresses. There  were  no  arrangements  for  the  comfort  of  the  prisoners  on  these 
boats,  and  no  intention  of  making  them.  The  soldiers  were  shut  up  in  the  hold 
of  the  boats,  near  the  engines  and  the  coal,  in  an  insupportably  thick  atmosphere. 
The  officers,  to  the  number  of  twenty,  were  lodged  in  a  cabin  with  two  beds. 
Neither  officers  nor  soldiers  were  allowed  on  the  bridge.  The  only  drink  they 
were  given  was  stale  water  mixed  with  brine,  and  on  the  second  day,  some 
mouldy  biscuit  as  their  only  food.  Yet  the  officers  were  soon  to  see  that  their 
lot  was  not  the  worst.  After  the  soldiery,  persecution  of  the  Bulgarian  civil 
population  at  Salonica  began,  under  pretext  that  they  were  all  comitadjis. 

The  members  of  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  heard  horrible  stories  of  what 
happened  at  Salonica  in  the  streets  and  in  the  Bulgarian  houses  on  July  18. 
But  there  again  it  is  not  always  convenient  to  cite  the  names  of  those  who 
suffered,  still  less  of  those  who  gave  evidence.  We  shall  begin  with  a  foreigner, 
at  once  victim  and  witness,  who  was  taken  for  a  Bulgarian  and  consequently 
for  a  comitadji.  His  story,  which  we  shall  cite  in  extenso,  will  serve  as  an 
example. 


THE   WAR  AND  THE    NATIONALITIES  189 

John  (Jovane)  Rachkovits,  Austrian  subject,  born  in  Dalmatia,  was  a  mer- 
chant in  Salonica.  On  June  17/30,  he  came  out  of  his  shop  to  go  to  the  Austrian 
post  office,  where  he  had  an  order  for  fr.  300  to  cash.  He  had  the  sum  of  ninety 
francs  in  his  pocket.  A  spy  pointed  him  out  to  the  police  as  a  Bulgarian  comi- 
tadji.  This  was  enough  to  cause  him  to  be  arrested,  brought  before  the  police, 
interrogated,  and  his  reply  being  doubted,  put  on  board  the  steamer  and  shut 
up  in  the  coal  bunker.  There  he  spent  three  days  and  three  nights,  in  company 
with  seventy-two  Bulgarian  prisoners.  All  that  he  had  was  stolen  from  him, 
and  when  he  tried  to  protest,  in  his  quality  of  Austrian  subject,  his  Austrian 
passport  was  snatched  from  him  and  torn  in  pieces.  Some  soldiers  were  shot 
during  the  crossing,  and  he  "suspected"  that  some  one  had  been  thrown  into 
the  sea.  [We  shall  see  that  this  suspicion  was  well  founded.]  No  bread  was 
given  out.  only  biscuits.  The  drinking  water  was  brackish.  When  they  arrived 
at  Trikeri  (the  prison  at  the  opening  of  the  Gulf  of  Volo),  they  were  given 
bread,  olives  and  onions.  There  was  no  doctor  at  Trikeri,  and  the  prisoners 
died  at  the  rate  of  five  to  seven  a  day.  After  protests  from  the  Austrian  consul, 
Mr.  Rachkovits  was  sent  back  to  Salonica,  but  he  suffered  even  more  on  the 
return  voyage.  His  hands  were  tied  so  tightly  behind  his  back  that  his  chest 
was  strained."  Afterwards  water  was  poured  on  the  cords  to  make  them  tighter 
still.  Ten  days  after  his  arrival  at  Salonica  a  member  of  the  Commission  saw 
his  swollen  and  diseased  hands;  part  of  the  skin  had  been  taken  off  and  the 
marks  of  the  cords  could  still  be  clearly  seen. 

Here  is  the  fate  of  another  civil  prisoner,  this  time  a  real  Bulgarian,  Spiro 
Souroudjiev,  a  notable  known  in  Salonica.  He  had  already  been  arrested,  ques- 
tioned and  set  at  liberty.  A  week  later  he  was  arrested  again  and  sent  to 
Trikeri.  He  was  a  rich  man,  and  his  wife  succeeded  in  seeing  her  husband 
again  by  paying  the  sum  of  £T500  (the  figure  was  given  to  a  member  of  the 
Commission  by  people  who  knew).  But  in  what  a  state  did  she  see  him!  The 
poor  man  was  half  dead,  and  could  not  speak.  At  his  second  interview  with 
his  wife,  he  could  only  just  pronounce  the  words  "We  have  been  horribly 
beaten."  His  clothes  smelled  of  excrement.  For  seven  nights  he  had  not  slept, 
having  been  fastened  back  to  back  with  another  prisoner.  On  his  wife's  in- 
sistence he  was  transported  to  the  French  hospital  of  the  Catholic  sisters,  but 
the  next  day  he  was  transferred  to  the  cholera  barracks,  where,  after  two 
injections,  he  died. 

Here  is  a  third  case,  and  one  of  a  kind  that  will  not  be  forgotten.  The 
victim  is  the  vicar  of  the  Bulgarian  Archbishopric  at  Salonica,  the  Archimandrite 
Eulogius,  who  by  duty  and  conviction  alike  represented  the  national  Bulgarian 
cause  throughout  the  whole  vilayet.  This  time  we  have  a  declared  enemy  of 
Macedonian  Hellenism.  A  member  of  the  Commission  made  his  acquaintance 
during  his  journey  to  the  Balkans  in  January,  1913.  He  was  a  highly  educated 
man,  having  studied  at  an  ecclesiastical  high  school  in  Austria  Hungary,  and  then 


190  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

in  Paris;  an  enlightened  and  ardent  patriot  of  noble  and  elevated  views.  He 
was  subjected  to  persecution  by  the  Greek  authorities  even  at  this  time,  and 
took  great  pains  in  the  use  of  the  Bulgarian  language  in  the  teaching  of  the 
Episcopal  See,  which  the  Greeks  frequently  tried  to  prevent.  The  Bulgarian 
soldiers  lodged  just  in  front  of  the  Episcopal  house;  and  it  was  thanks  to  the 
protection  of  the  temporal  power  that  the  spiritual  maintained  its  existence. 
But  with  the  extinction  of  this  last  dream  of  Bulgarian  sovereignty,  the  Arch- 
bishopric was  at  an  end.  The  Archimandrite  Eulogius  lived  his  last  on  June 
18/July  1.  During  the  night  attack  he  escaped  by  hiding  under  the  staircase; 
in  the  morning  he  was  taken  and  put  on  board  the  steamer  Mariette  Ralli,  where 
Commander  Lazarov  and  Dr.  Lazarov,  a  doctor  at  the  hospital,  joined  him  and 
conversed  with  him.  Their  two  depositions  have  now  been  published,1  and  it  is 
important  to  compare  them  with  the  assertion  of  the  agency  at  Athens,  that  "It 
appears  from  the  public  inquiry  that  Eulogius  was  at  the  head  of  Bulgarian 
comitadjis  at  Salonica,  who  fired  on  the  Greek  troops  which  were  trying  to 
reestablish  order.  Eulogius  was  killed  at  the  moment  he  fired  on  the  Greeks." 

Unfortunately  it  is  not  true  that  Eulogius  died  in  defending  himself  against 
the  Greek  soldiers  who  were  "reestablishing  order"  by  sacking  the  Bulgarian 
Episcopal  palace.  About  midday  on  the  18th  the  two  brothers  Lazarov  saw  him 
on  board  the  Mariette  Ralli.  Towards  evening  on  the  same  day  he  was  trans- 
ferred on  board  the  Catherine.  On  the  19th  at  half  past  two  the  Catherine 
took  to  sea.  Three  hours  later,  Eulogius  was  no  more.  Here  again  eye  wit- 
nesses confirm  what  the  Commission  heard  said  in  Salonica.  F.  Doukov,  a  Bul- 
garian prisoner,  just  returned  to  Varna  from  Greece,  says  for  example: 

He  was  arrested  on  June  17  about  midday,  and  incarcerated  in  the  post 
office  at  Top-hane.  At  seven  o'clock,  four  soldiers  from  the  bank  picket 
were  brought  to  the  post  office  also,  and  with  them  the  cashier  of  the  bank, 
Helias  Nabouliev,  and  Jankov,  the  accountant.  On  the  next  morning  all 
the  Bulgarians  who  had  been  taken  were  gathered  together,  Nabouliev 
was  called,  stripped  and  deprived  of  fr.  850.  The  others  were  also  pillaged. 
Before  noon  all  the  prisoners  were  put  on  board  the  steamer,  Nabouliev 
and  Jankov  a  little  later.  On  the  same  day  towards  evening,  the  vicar  of 
the  Salonica  Archbishopric,  the  Archimandrite  Eulogius,  was  brought  with 
his  deacon,  Basil  Constantinov,  and  George  Dermendjiev,  the  Metropolitan 
archvicar,  his  secretary,  Christian  Batandjiev,  being  put  on  another  steamer. 
Before  noon  on  the  19th  several  Greeks  from  Salonica  came  on  board  the  boat 
and  jeered  at  and  beat  the  prisoners.  The  Archimandrite  was  maltreated  in 
the  most  shameful  way.  In  the  afternoon  at  half  past  two  the  steamer 
started.  When  it  passed  the  big  promontory  of  Kara-Bournon,  the  Archi- 
mandrite was  thrown  into  the  sea.  Three  shots  were  fired  at  him  and  he 

^The  story  of  Commander  Lazarov  in  the  Politico  of  November  14/27,  1913  (in  Bul- 
garian) and  that  of  Dr.  Lazarov  as  an  appendix  to  the  Reply  to  pamphlet  by  the  Professors 
of  the  University  of  Athens—Bulgarian  Atrocities  in  Macedonia,  by  the  professors  at  the 
University  at  Sofia,  p.  115. 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  191 

drowned.     J.   Nabouliev,  Jankov  and   Nicolas  Iliev  were  put  to  death  in 
the  same  way.1 

Another  witness  is  Basil  Lazarov,  the  forester  of  Kazanlik,  who  says : 

On  June  19,  at  half  past  three  in  the  afternoon,  223  soldiers,  eight  men 
employed  on  the  railway,  Ghnev  and  Vatchkov,  officials  at  the  station,  Tor- 
danov,  the  physician  of  the  Fifth  Hospital,  Mr.  Nabouliev,  cashier  of  the 
Bulgarian  National  bank,  Mr.  Jankov,  the  accountant  of  the  same  bank, 
Eulogius,  vicar  of  the  Bulgarian  Archbishopric  of  Salonica,  and  many  other 
Bulgarians  and  a  large  number  of  peaceable  citizens  of  the  Macedonian 
countries  occupied  by  the  Greeks,  were  conveyed  on  board  the  steamer 
Catherine  to  the  Island  of  Itakon.  After  a  voyage  of  three  hours,  near 
Cape  Kara-Bournon,  we  saw  a  man  being  put  to  death;  the  Greek  soldiers 
threw  the  Archimandrite  Eulogius  into  the  sea,  and  fired  three  shots  at  him 
for  fear  he  might  escape  drowning.  On  June  21,  about  seven  in  the 
evening,  Jankov  the  accountant,  Nicolas  Iliev  the  courier,  and  Nabouliev 
the  cashier  were  called  up  to  the  bridge.  When  they  went  up  the  exits  of 
our  prison  were  shut  by  means  of  planks,  and  we  were  told  not  to  try  to 
get  out.  At  this  moment  the  three  persons  whose  names  I  have  just  given 
had  already  been  cast  into  the  sea. 

Another  eye  witness,  the  soldier,  G.  Ivantchev,  described  the  scene  of  the 
murder  of  Rev.  Father  Eulogius  in  the  following  words : 

We  were  a  number  of  soldiers  on  board  the  steamer.  I  happened  to 
stand  a  little  apart.  The  Greek  soldiers  ordered  our  people  to  go  down 
into  the  hold.  When  I  found  myself  alone  I  was  afraid  of  being  thrown 
out  of  the  ship  and  held  my  breath.  At  this  moment  the  Vicar  of  our 
Archbishopric,  the  Rev.  Father  Eulogius,  was  brought  up  and  two  Greek 
soldiers  having  hastily  robbed  him  transfixed  him  with  their  bayonets  and 
threw  him  into  the  sea.  I  saw  his  long  black  hair  floating  for  some  time 
on  the  water,  and  then  everything  disappeared. 

The  Bulgarian  Telegraphic  Agency  actually  gives  the  names  of  the  Greeks 
at  Salonica  who  came  on  board  the  steamer  on  June  19/July  2  to  see  Eulogius 
maltreated.  "The  President  of  the  Greek  revolutionary  committee,  a  fanatic 
called  Cherefa  and  Dr.  Mizo  Poulos"  were  the  people  "who  came  on  board  the 
Catherine  where  the  andarte  hit  the  Bulgarian  prelate  twice  and  even  kicked 
him  in  the  shins. 

After  such  scenes  of  refined  barbarism,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  record  the 
numerous  stories  of  domiciliary  perquisitions  and  arbitrary  arrests  which  took 
place  at  Salonica  during  the  days  between  the  17th  and  the  19th,  which  have 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Commission.  The  picture  may  be  completed  by 
mentioning  that  avarice  as  well  as  cruelty  played  its  part  in  all  this.  The  vic- 
tims were  systematically  robbed  before  they  were  put  to  death,  and  frequently 


^Politico.    October  20,  1913  (old  style). 


192  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

money  was  taken  as  a  ransom  for  life  and  liberty.  Money  was  taken  from  the 
soldiers  who  were  sent  to  Trikeri,  but  most  of  them  kept  something  back.  The 
device  employed  by  the  Greek  guards  to  compel  their  prisoners  to  give  up  what 
they  had  kept  back  was  as  follows  :l 

Twenty-eight  prisoners  were  transferred  from  the  ship  to  the  shore  in 
a  little  boat.  When  they  got  near  land,  the  Greeks  made  holes  in  the 
bottom  of  the  boat  and  it  began  to  fill  with  water.  The  prisoners  were 
then  asked  to  give  up  their  money  on  pain  of  being  drowned.  Our  wit- 
nesses say  that  the  threat  was  not  vain;  two  prisoners  who  had  no  money 
were  drowned.  All  the  others  gave  what  they  possessed. 

Even  at  Salonica  people  who  did  not  want  to  be  sent  to  prison  or  shut  up 
paid  the  police  agents  who  took  them.  When  in  the  first  instance  the  arrest 
was  made  by  officials  of  a  lower  grade,  the  business  was  easier  and  cheaper. 
Thus  at  Salonica  names  are  given  of  people  arrested  and  set  free  the  same  day 
at  the  police  station.  Once  the  prisoner  was  transported  to  the  central  prison, 
it  became  more  difficult  and  troublesome;  but  all  was  not  yet  lost.  Thus  the 
Dermendjievs,  father  and  son,  paid  £T100,  Mr.  Piperkov,  fifty  pounds,  and 
Mr.  Kazandjiev  an  amount  not  known.  The  case  of  Mr.  Karabelev,  a  Stam- 
boulist  deputy  from  Plevna,  and  proprietor  of  the  Grand  Hotel,  is  more  com- 
plicated. Being  arrested  eleven  days  before  the  catastrophe  of  June  30,  he 
handed  over  the  key  of  his  strong  box  to  the  Russian  consul.  A  proposal  to 
set  him  at  liberty  at  the  price  of  twenty-five  Napoleons  was  made.  The  police 
then  appeared  to  make  a  legal  perquisition  in  his  strong  box.  It  was  too  late; 
the  police  found  the  strong  box  broken  and  the  whole  contents,  diamonds,  bonds 
and  some  thousands  of  Turkish  pounds  disappeared! 

But  a  simple  plan  open  to  any  Greek  soldier  was  to  appear  in  a  Bulgarian 
house  and  say:  "Your  money  or  your  life."  A  story  is  told  by  a  Bulgarian  in 
the  documents  of  Mr.  Miletits.2  "On  June  20/July  3,  two  soldiers  came  into  our 
house  and  threatened  to  kill  G ,  as  they  had  already  killed  many  other  Bul- 
garians. You  can  imagine  the  fear  and  horror  which  filled  the  house.  The 

soldiers  then  said  that  they  would  not  touch  him  if  he  gave  them  fr.  500.     G 

had  a  hundred  francs  which  he  offered  them,  but    the    soldiers    refused    it. 

G—  -  then  told  them  to  wait  while  M went  to  get  some  money  from  Yosko 

M—  -  found  two  Cretan  policeman  who  suddenly  appeared,  told  them  what  was 
going  on  and  brought  them  to  the  house.  The  soldiers  made  off  and  the  incident 
was  thus  at  an  end." 

To  the  knowledge  of  the  Commission  these  brave  Cretans  more  than  once 
turned  what  might  easily  have  become  a  tragedy  into  a  farce.  The  Cretan 


1This  story  was  heard  by  the  Commission  at  Sofia,  and  they  are  acquainted  with  the 
names  of  the  Bulgarian  prisoners  who  witnessed  it. 

2Documents  on  the  Greek  atrocities  extracted  from  the  book  by  Professor  L.  Miletits, 
Greek  Atrocities  in  Macedonia,  p.  65. 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  193 

police  often  had  to  defend  the  Bulgarian  population  at  Salonica  against  the 
tacit  complicity  of  the  evzones  and  the  Greek  soldiers  with  the  Greek  popula- 
tion. Here  is  another  scene  in  the  Commission's  documents :  After  June  18  one 
of  the  two  houses  occupied  by  the  Bulgarian  girls'  school  remained  unhurt. 
The  schoolmistress,  Ivanova,  came  to  lock  the  house  up.  She  found  Greek 
soldiers  feasting  before  the  door.  Seeing  Miss  Ivanova  shutting  the  doors,  the 
Greek  inhabitants  suggested  to  the  soldiers  getting  in  by  the  windows.  Soldiers 
and  inhabitants  climbed  up  to  the  window  and  pillaged  the  property  of  Miss 
Ivanova :  they  then  asked  for  her  keys  to  make  legal  perquisition.  The  school- 
mistress complained  to  the  Cretans.  They  asked  her  to  show  them  the 
Greek  houses  in  which  the  stolen  goods  were  to  be  found.  She  went  from  house 
to  house  with  the  police,  finding  here  her  cushion,  there  her  clothes,  and  in 
another  house  her  wardrobe,  which  a  Greek  soldier  had  sold  for  five  francs. 

The  abuses  committed  in  such  an  atmosphere  may  readily  be  imagined. 
Worse,  however,  than  these  abuses  was  the  use  of  legal  force.  The  notion  of 
having  to  deal  always  with  comitadjis  became  a  kind  of  obsession.  The  prisons 
of  Salonica  were  overflowing  with  Bulgarians,  arrested  in  the  town  itself  and  in 
the  vilayet,  for  having  dared  to  proclaim  themselves  Bulgarians.  It  was  reck- 
oned that  betv/een  4,000  and  5,000  had  been  sent  to  Greece  while  as  many  as 
a  thousand  were  shut  up  in  the  prisons  at  Salonica  (at  Yedikoule,  at  Konak, 
and  in  the  "new"  prison).  We  shall  have  another  opportunity  to  return  to  the 
condition  of  these  prisons  and  their  inmates  and  to  the  violations  of  the  Red 
Cross  conventions  during  the  memorable  days  of  the  17th,  18th  and  19th  of  June. 
We  may,  however,  quote  here  the  case  of  a  witness  who  was  heard  by  the  Com- 
mission, to  show  the  way  in  which  people  who  had  committed  no  crime  but 
that  of  being  Bulgarians  were  being  treated  at  this  time.  This  was  a  scholar 
of  the  Salonica  Realschuli,  Demitrius  Risov,  a  youth  of  seventeen.  On  June  17, 
he  was  walking  in  the  street  when  he  was  arrested  and  led  "before  a  captain." 
The  latter  asked  him,  "Who  are  you?"  He  replied,  "I  am  Bulgarian."  He  was 
searched  and  a  photograph  of  his  father,  a  Bulgarian  officer,  found  upon  him. 
"What  is  that?"  Without  waiting  for  a  reply,  the  officer  hit  him  and  sent  him 
to  prison  under  the  guard  of  a  soldier.  There  there  were  seventeen  policemen 
and  soldiers  who  beat  him  for  five  or  ten  minutes,  until  he  lost  consciousness. 
He  was  thrown  down  from  the  top  of  a  step-ladder,  and  since  the  ladder  had  no 
steps  he  fell  against  the  wall  and  lay  there  for  some  time  in  the  mud  and  wet. 
In  the  evening  as  many  as  thirty  other  civil  prisoners  were  brought  in,  and  since 
there  was  very  little  room  below  the  ladder,  Risov  had  to  stand  on  it.  In  this 
position  he  heard  a  Cretan  policeman  boasting  of  the  massacres  of  civilians.  By 
way  of  proof  one  of  the  policemen  produced  a  paper  in  which  there  was  a 
severed  human  ear,  which  Risov  said  that  he  saw  less  than  a  yard  off.  Every- 
body laughed  at  this  proof  of  courage.  At  the  end  of  about  an  hour  and  a  half, 
they  saw  Risov  sleeping  as  he  stood.  Somebody  pushed  him  and  he  fell  down. 


194  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

A  soldier  came  down  after  him  and  said,  "Only  wait  two  or  three  hours  and  we 
will  send  you  all  to  sleep  for  good."  Some  peasants  among  the  prisoners  began 
saying  their  prayers  and  making  the  sign  of  the  Cross,  when  they  heard  these 
words.  Forty-eight  hours  passed  thus,  during  which  no  food  was  given  them, 
despite  their  complaints;  then  the  door  opened  again  and  Risov  was  pointed  out 
and  again  interrogated.  To  frighten  them,  he  said  that  when  he  was  arrested 
he  had  been  to  the  American  consulate  before  starting  for  America.  He  was 
set  at  liberty.  But  the  way  was  long  and  Risov  knew  that  Bulgarians  found 
in  the  streets  were  being  killed  every  day.  He  asked  for  a  written  passport,  or 
a  soldier  to  take  him  home.  The  officer  refused;  Risov  went  out  alone  and 
taking  precautions  returned  to  his  family.  Alas,  he  found  his  mother  in  tears, 
for  his  father,  an  old  man  of  sixty-five,  was  in  prison.  Thence  he  was  sent  to 
Greece.  His  younger  brother,  who  had  been  severely  beaten,  was  very  ill;  his 
elder  brother,  a  deaf  mute,  had  also  been  beaten,  for  they  had  taken  his  infirmity 
as  a  device.  A  week  later  the  Cretans  visited  the  house  again.  They  looked 
for  somebody  or  something.  They  took  hold  of  the  deaf  mute  and  pulled  his 
tongue  to  make  him  speak.  They  found  nothing,  and  left  the  house,  threatening, 
"If  you  do  not  become  Greeks  in  three  days,  we  will  water  your  deaf  mute  with 
petrol  and  burn  him  with  the  house."  The  mother,  in  despair,  threatened  to  go 
out  of  her  mind.  Risov  then  remembered  that  the  mother  of  one  of  his  friends 
was  a  Frenchwoman.  He  asked  her  to  get  the  consulate  to  intervene.  Salva- 
tion thus  came  at  last  from  France.  After  a  new  perquisition  the  Risov  family 
was  left  in  peace. 

The  Commission  could  quote  other  witnesses  of  the  same  kind,  but  it  seems 
that  what  has  been  said  is  sufficient  to  enable  the  reader  to  draw  his  own 
conclusions. 

The  country  behind  Salonica  is  inhabited  by  a  yet  more  mixed  population, 
from  the  nationalist  point  of  view,  than  that  of  Northern  Macedonia  (see  the 
ethnographic  map).  Apart  from  the  Hellenic  population,  which  occupies  a 
narrow  strip  to  the  south  of  Macedonia,  the  Tchataldjic  peninsula,  and  the  coasts, 
which  constitutes  a  more  or  less  important  part  of  the  town  population,  you 
meet  Bulgarians,  Turks,  Wallachians  (V lacks  or  Roumanians),  Albanians,  Jews, 
Gypsies.  At  the  end  of  the  two  wars  and  the  oppressive  measures  of  which 
we  shall  speak,  the  ethnographic  map  of  Southern  Macedonia  had  undergone 
profound  changes.  But  we  have  a  recent  picture  of  the  state  of  things  before 
the  war  in  the  ethnographic  map  just  published  by  Mr.  J.  Ivanov,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Sofia — in  1913.1  The  total  numbers  belonging  to  the  various  nation- 
ethnographic  map  of  Southern  Macedonia,  representing  the  ethnic  distribution  on  the 
eve  of  the  1912  Balkan  war,  by  J.  Ivanov,  lecturer  at  the  University  of  Sofia.  Scale  1: 
200.000.  Explanatory  notes.  Sofia,  1913,  p.  8.  The  author  employed  the  Turkish  electoral 
lists  and  the  Salnames,  Greek  statistics  made  in  1913  by  Mr.  Kalixiopoulos ;  the  unpublished 
returns  of  the  detailed  statistics  undertaken  by  the  1912  Exarchate,  and  the  new  Roumanian 
statistics  of  A.  Rubin  &  Co.  Noe,  etc.,  and  "verified  all  information  at  his  disposal  on  the 
spot."  The  map  shows  all  the  towns  and  villages  in  proportion  to  their  size,  and  marks  the 
proportions  of  the  various  nationalities  in  color. 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES 


195 


alities  in  a  territory  a  little  larger  than  the  portion  in  the  same  region  ceded  to 
the  Greeks  by  the  Turks  was  as  follows: 

Bulgarians    329,371 

Turks    314,854 

Greeks    236,755 

Wallachians   44,414 

Albanians    15,108 

Gypsies    25,302 

Jews    68,206 

Miscellaneous    8,019 


Total 1,042,029 

The  statistics  accepted  by  the  Greeks  differ  considerably  from  these.  To 
give  some  idea  of  the  difference,  the  figures  of  Mr.  Amadori  Virgili  are  repro- 
duced (in  brackets)  with  those  of  the  Messager  d'Athenes  of  February  2/15, 
1913,  quoted  in  a  recent  work  by  Mr.  Charles  Bellay,  L'irredentisme  hellenique 
(Perrin,  1913),  as  representative  of  the  Greek  point  of  view: 

SANDJAKS  (Divisions  of  vilayets} 


Servia 

Salonica 

Serres 

Drama 

Total 

Orthodox  Greeks    

Exarchist  Bulgarians  .  . 

111,000 
J,500 
59,000 
760 

(119,466) 

(80,702) 
(1,460) 
(43) 

(3) 

224,000 
75,000 
200,000 
6,000 
61,800 
900 
1,400 

(233,508) 
(70,096) 
(189,600) 
(3,928) 
(65,730) 

(2,314) 

92,000 
121,000 
118,000 
1,350 
1,400 
7,500 

(96,513) 
(98,586) 
(122.303) 
(980) 
(3,005) 

46,000 
2,000 
105,000 

250 

(47,852) 
(2,120) 
(124,100) 

473,000 
199,500 
482.500 
8,110 
63,200 
8,650 
1,400 

(497,339) 
(170,802) 
(516,705) 
(6,368) 
(68,778) 

(2,317) 

172,260 

(801,674) 

569,100 

(565,176) 

341,250 

(321,387) 

153,250 

(174,072) 

1,236,360 

(1,262,309) 

Clearly,  in  the  Greek  statistics,  the  Moslem  total  is  swollen  by  the  addition 
of  the  pomaks  (Bulgarian  Moslems),  from  whom,  in  the  Bulgarian  statistics, 
the  Turks  are  separated.  In  the  Greek  figures  the  "orthodox"  Greeks  include 
the  patriarchist  Bulgarians  and  Wallachians,  whom  they  call  "Bulgarophone 
Greeks"  or  "Wallachophones"  (Roumanianizers).  With  these  exceptions,  the 
difference  is  not  considerable,  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  territory  is  not 
quite  the  same;  and  it  may  be  admitted  that  if  language  rather  than  the  religion 
is  used  to  determine  nationality,  Mr.  Ivanov's  figures  are  or  were  nearer  the 
truth.  The  polemics  of  the  Servian  press  put  the  number  of  "Slavs"  annexed  by 
Greece  at  260,000;  a  figure  which  the  Greek  press  reduced  to  120,000.  The 
secret  Greek-Bulgarian  treaty,  as  we  know,  contained  no  indication  as  to  the 
frontiers  on  which  the  two  parties  had  agreed.  This  was  one  more  incitement 
to  "Hellenic  irridentism."  In  Greece,  as  in  Servia,  two  opposing  tendencies 
were  at  work  after  the  first  successes  of  the  Hellenic  army.  Like  Mr.  Pachitch, 
of  Belgrade,  and  Mr.  Guechov,  of  Servia,  Mr.  Venizelos  was  for  moderation, 
seeing  therein  the  sole  means  of  safeguarding  their  common  creation,  namely, 


196  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

the  Balkan  alliance.  The  discontent  of  the  military  party  grew  more  and  more 
outspoken,  and  as  in  Servia  so  in  Greece,  found  a  leader  and  interpreter  in  the 
person  of  the  heir  to  the  throne.  The  Greek  diaspora  was  a  much  stronger  and 
older  organization  than  the  scattered  colonies  gathered  round  the  Servian  school- 
masters and  band  leaders.  Here  the  patriotic  organization  was  based  on  a  con- 
siderable settlement  of  really  Greek  population,  and  was  accustomed  to  obey  the 
word  of  command  from  Athens.  From  the  months  of  January  and  February 
onwards,  a  regular  campaign  was  organized,  with  addresses,  memoranda,  tele- 
grams, congress  resolutions,  etc.,  despatched  to  the  Ambassadorial  Conference 
in  London  and  to  the  Hellenic  government,  all  demanding  annexation  by  Greece. 
On  March  1/14,  one  of  these  memorials  was  presented  to  the  Hellenic  chamber 
in  the  name  of  the  "Hellenes  of  Thrace  and  of  Eastern  Macedonia,  who  consti- 
tute almost  the  whole  of  the  Christian  population  of  these  regions."  The  peti- 
tioners "proudly  proclaim  that  Hellenism  alone  has,  in  the  present  war,  made 
more  moral  and  material  sacrifices  than  any  other  of  the  allies  or  than  all  the 
allies  together" ;  and  demand  their  national  regeneration  through  union  with 
their  mother  country,  Greece.1  Mr.  Venizelos  entered  an  interpolation  here,  and 
his  reply  afforded  a  remarkable  example  of  a  political  wisdom,  soon  to  find  itself 
swept  away  by  the  chauvinistic  passion  of  the  dominant  party:  "Necessarily," 
said  the  initiator  of  the  alliance,  "Greek  populations  and  groups  composed  of 
these  populations  will  pass  under  the  domination  of  our  allies.  And  the  reason 
is  not  that  these  countries  have  been  conquered  by  our  allies,  or  that  our  allies 
demand  it,  but  the  force  of  geographical  considerations.  This  is  so  true  that 
even  were  our  allies  disposed  to  allow  us  to  extend  our  frontiers  towards  their 
regions,  and  encompass  the  Greek  populations,  I  at  least,  in  my  capacity  of 
responsible  Minister,  would  never  accept  a  line  of  demarcation  which  for  us  is 
full  of  peril.  If  we  are  to  go  on  extending  in  unbroken  continuity  along  the 
sea,  to  encompass  all  the  Greek  population  of  Thrace,  Greece  thus  extended  and 
without  any  vertebral  column,  would  be  weaker  than  if  its  frontiers  were  rounded 
off  differently.  *  *  *  I  hope  that  no  one  from  these  benches  will  encourage 
resistance  on  the  part  of  these  disturbed  and  troubled  populations."  When  he 
was  violently  attacked  for  these  words,  Mr.  Venizelos  added :  "A  similar  decla- 
ration was  made  three  or  four  weeks  after  the  declaration  of  the  war  of  libera- 
tion. *  *  *  From  that  time  on  I  have  stated  that  I  was  making  the  sacrifice 
of  a  large  part  of  Hellenic  Thrace.  *  *  *  I  felt  it  my  duty  to  communicate 
this  statement  to  the  Chamber  because  *  *  *  I  knew  that  a  movement  was 
being  worked  up  among  their  Greek  populations  which  are  destined  to  remain 
inside  of  Greater  Greece.  *  *  *  Those  who  are  urging  such  an  attitude  upon 
them  are  the  true  enemies  of  their  country." 

Nevertheless,  while  speaking  against  the  procedure  of  the  patriotic  Hellenic 

1See  this  and  the  sixty-two  other  memorials  published  in  the  appendices  to  the  inter- 
esting and  instructive  work  of  Mr.  Charles  Bellay,  L'irredentisme  hellenique,  cited  above. 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  197 

organizations  in  Thrace,  Mr.  Venizelos  said  nothing  about  Eastern  Macedonia, 
which  came  within  the  scope  of  the  "Deliannis  formula,"  nor  about  Southwest- 
ern Slav  Macedonia,  at  whose  expense  it  was  evidently  hoped  to  accomplish  the 
"rounding"  of  the  Greek  frontiers.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  common  Greek- 
Servian  frontier  had  been  already  discussed  in  the  "Salonica-Monastir  train," 
and  it  is  clearly  in  this  sense  that  Mr.  Venizelos  understood  the  division  among 
the  allies  of  which  he  spoke  in  the  chamber.  This  idea  of  a  "division"  of  the 
territories  in  condominium  among  all  the  allies  has  already  been  substituted  for 
the  idea  of  Serbo-Bulgarian  "arbitration."  Some  days  after  Mr.  Venizelos's 
declaration,  the  heir,  Prince  Constantine,  became  King  of  Greece  (March  6/19). 
The  effects  of  this  change  made  themselves  felt  on  the  relations  between 
the  Greeks  in  occupation  and  the  indigenous  population.  We  may  begin  our 
examination  of  these  relations  with  Castoria.  From  the  beginning  of  the  occu- 
pation, the  authorities  there  pretended  to  ignore  the  very  existence  of  the  Bul- 
garian population.  It  is  tme  that  Prince  Constantine's  proclamation  on  Novem- 
ber 14/27  announced  that  in  the  occupation  regions  the  Greeks  would  respect 
the  language  and  religious  customs  of  the  nationalities.  That  however  did  not 
affect  the  Bulgarians,  who  evidently  were  no  more  than  "Bulgarophone  Greeks" 
in  the  eyes  of  authority.  Announcements  and  appeals  to  the  population  were 
published  in  Greek,  Turkish  and  Yiddish,  exactly  as  though  the  Bulgarian  lan- 
guage did  not  exist,  and  Bulgarian  remonstrances  remained  unheeded.  To  make 
the  reality  harmonize  with  this  theory,  the  occupation  army  had  recourse  to  the 
acts  of  violence  which  we  know.  After  a  sufficient  demonstration  had  been 
made  by  the  population,  of  the  fate  awaiting  those  who  persisted  in  calling  them- 
selves Bulgarians,  formal  retractations  began  to  be  demanded.  These  declara- 
tions, which  the  villagers  were  forced  to  sign,  conformed  in  the  Castoria  region 
to  two  types.  According  to  one  of  the  two  declarations,  the  people  were  made 
to  say  that  they  had  been  Greeks  from  the  most  ancient  times,  but  had  called 
themselves  Bulgarians  under  the  influence  of  Bulgarian  propaganda.  According 
to  the  other,  they  were  made  to  say  that  up  to  1903  the  population  had  been 
Hellenic,  but  that  between  1903  and  1906,  they  had  been  forced  to  call  them- 
selves Bulgarians  by  the  threats  of  the  Bulgarian  bands  and  comitadjis.  The 
two  models  ended  with  the  same  declaration,  namely,  that  immediately  on  the 
army's  arrival  the  population  felt  its  Hellenism  and  asked  to  be  received  into 
the  bosom  of  the  "Great  Church  of  Jesus  Christ."  The  Bulgarians  were  not 
"Christians"  in  "our  sense."  The  Greek  bishop  of  Castoria  received  the  deputa- 
tions sent  to  him  from  all  the  villages,  and  was  in  fact  the  center  of  this  active 
assimilation.  The  evzones  played  the  part  of  apostles  in  this  conversion  at  the 
bayonet's  point.  As  examples  we  may  cite  the  villages  of  Gabreche.  Drenoveni, 
Tchernovitsa,  Tourie,  Ragoritchani,  Dembeni,  etc.  In  the  villages  of  Breznitsa, 
Gorno  and  Dolno  Nestrame,  all  the  inhabitants  were  thrown  into  prison  and 
driven  thereby  to  call  themselves  Greeks.  The  reply  given  to  a  man  who  said 
he  was  a  Bulgarian  was :  "Wast  thou  born  at  Sofia ;  there  are  no  Bulgarians  in 


198  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Macedonia;  the  whole  population  is  Greek."  To  maintain  this  principle,  a  pass- 
port was  given  to  those  few  natives  who  had  to  be  admitted  to  be  Bulgarians, 
declaring  them  to  have  been  born  in  Bulgaria.  The  Commission  knew  of  a 
passport  of  this  kind  given  to  the  incumbent  of  the  Bulgarian  diocese  of  Cas- 
toria, although  the  man  was  born  at  Resen  (in  Macedonia)  the  Greek  passport 
stated  that  the  place  of  his  birth  was  in  Bulgaria.  He  was  in  fact  permitted: 


va.  [ieia6r(  EL$  Beaaa^ovixyv  xal  EXEiOiv  ei$  LYIV  fiovJiyapiav  l£  erg* 


and  this  was  not  an  isolated  case.  The  Mahometan  pomaks  of  the  village  of 
Gerveni  were  also  entered  as  Greeks  by  the  enumeration  commission;  from  the 
moment  at  which  they  spoke  Bulgarian  and  not  Turkish,  they  were  revealed 
as  Greeks. 

Victory  secured  in  the  villages  which  were  disarmed,  then  came  the  turn  of 
the  intellectuals,  the  Bulgarian  clergy,  schoolmasters  and  officials.  A  number  of 
persons  whose  names  and  cases  are  cited  in  the  documents  in  the  possession 
of  the  Commission,  were  arrested,  beaten,  put  in  prison  and  even  killed.  The 
Bulgarian  Metropolis  of  Castoria  was,  at  first,  ignored  by  the  authorities  so  far 
as  its  legal  institution  went  :  then  cut  off  from  the  population  under  severe  penal- 
ties for  any  communication;  and  finally,  about  the  beginning  of  June,  formally 
blockaded  by  twenty  or  thirty  soldiers  and  searched  by  the  police.  Afterwards, 
by  order  of  the  government,  all  the  officials  and  schoolmasters  were  shut  up  in 
their  own  houses  until  further  orders.  At  this  moment  the  Greek  papers  were 
already  talking  of  the  war  as  imminent.  The  Embros,  in  a  letter  from  Salonica, 
said  on  June  14/27,  "the  great  struggle  for  the  existence  of  Hellenism  will  begin 
in  a  few  days."  On  June  14/27,  Proodos  said,  "We  are  on  the  eve  of  war. 
*  *  *  On  his  departure  for  Salonica  the  king  took  his  field  uniforms  with 
him.  *  *  *  The  war  proclamation  *  *  *  is  ready."  War  began  on  the 
17/30,  and  the  Greek  citizens  of  Castoria  were  singing  before  the  Metropolis 
verses  inviting  "A  draught  of  Bulgarian  blood."  On  July  31,  after  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  treaty  of  Bucharest,  the  frourarque  of  Castoria  summoned  the  head  of 
the  diocese,  the  officials  of  the  Metropolis,  and  the  schoolmasters,  and  told  them 
"By  order  of  the  new  government  I  give  you  forty-eight  hours  delay,  in  which 
to  quit  Greek  territory."  The  expatriated,  all  natives  of  Macedonia,  were  given 
certificates  to  the  effect  that  "they  were  returning  to  Bulgaria,  where  they  were 
born."  "He  who  goes  to  live  in  Bulgaria,"  was  the  reply  to  the  protests,  "is 
Bulgarian.  No  more  Bulgarians  in  Greek  Macedonia." 

We  have  also  sufficiently  complete  data  on  events  at  Vodena  (now  called 
Edessa).  Our  informant  there,  as  at  Castoria,  remembers  how  the  Hellenic 
army  entered  in  triumph  on  October  18/31,  amid  cries  of  joy  from  the  popula- 
tion. Each  house  harbored  ten  to  twenty  soldiers,  freely  and  without  asking 
pay,  and  the  town  distributed  gratuitously  6,000  okas  of  bread  per  day.  The 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  199 

time  had  not  come  of  forced  requisitions,  without  receipt,  demanding  everything 
without  allowing  any  merit  to  the  giver,  who  had  to  obey.  Ten  days  later,  the 
Greeks  were  beginning  to  say,  "We  shall  cut  your  tongues  to  teach  you  to  speak 
Greek."  They  began  confiscating  private  property,  and  sending  things  they  liked 
to  Greece;  furniture,  cattle,  etc.  The  churches  and  schools  were  immediately 
taken,  the  Slav  inscriptions  destroyed,  the  offices  burned,  the  priests  beaten  and 
driven  out.  Then  began  the  arrest  of  influential  persons  in  the  different  villages, 
such  as  Vestchitsa,  Tsarmarinovi,  Piskopia,  Arsene,  St.  Elvas,  Vettecope.  The 
soldiers  said  to  the  notables  in  prison  in  Vestchitsa,  "If  you  want  to  be  free, 
be  Greeks." 

War  once  declared — June  20,  21/July  3,  4,  as  many  as  200  Bulgarians,  the 
vicar,  priest,  notables,  schoolmasters,  inhabitants  of  the  town  and  of  the  villages, 
were  arrested.  They  were  beaten  and  sent  in  fours  to  Salonica.  On  June  30 
the  last  Bulgarian  church  was  confiscated;  the  Slav  national  images  of  St.  Cyril 
and  St.  Methodius  were  burned  and  their  ashes  covered  with  dung.  (The 
Greeks  and  Servians  regarded  these  images,  symbols  of  the  independence  of  the 
Slav  church,  with  special  detestation.)  At  the  beginning  of  July  the  population 
was  asked  to  sign  the  following  declaration:  "Under  compulsion  from  the  ex- 
archist  propaganda,  and  terrified  by  the  comitadjis,  we  became  Bulgarian.  We 
now  confess  the  true  orthodox  faith  and  our  Hellenic  nationality."  Emissaries 
were  then  sent  to  Salonica  to  offer  liberty  to  the  prisoners  from  Vodena  if  they 
would  declare  themselves  to  be  Greeks.  "We  remained  pure,"  Mr.  Atanasov, 
one  of  these  prisoners,  records,  "our  consciences  immaculate,  and  we  were  all 
thirty-three  freed  without  making  any  engagement  on  August  7/20.1  But  a 
Bulgarian  schoolmaster  from  the  village  of  Palati,  who  became  a  Greek,  wrote 
in  a  Greek  paper,  Imera,  that  the  prisoners  had  not  suffered  in  any  way  and 
that  "not  a  hair  of  their  heads  had  been  touched."  He  only  forgot  one  thing, 
according  to  Mr.  Atanasov:  that  had  they  remained  in  prison  a  month  after 
this,  not  one  would  have  come  out  alive.  Mr.  Atanasov  gives  a  picture  of  the 
Salonica  prisoners,  which  is  known  to  be  unhappily  too  correct.  "There  were 
130  of  us  in  a  single  room,"  he  said,  "and  often  we  had  to  stand  throughout  a 
whole  night,  waiting  our  turns  to  lie  down.  For  fifty  days  we  remained  in  this 
same  room  without  crossing  the  threshold.  The  air  we  breathed  can  be  imagined. 
There  were  others  who  had  been  there  100  days  and  more  without  having  been 
interrogated.  Their  shirts  were  indistinguishable  from  their  coats.  In  addi- 
tion to  this  filth  and  to  the  infection  of  the  air,  our  food  was  ill-cooked  bread, 
full  of  impurities.  We  were  as  though  buried  alive,  waiting  for  death  to  set  us 
free.  I  intentionally  omit  the  moral  suffering  caused  by  the  soldiers  who  were 
let  in  for  the  purpose.  Among  us  there  were  wretched  prisoners  from  Gumundje, 
Yenidje-Vardar,  Fiorina,  Castoria  and  Salonica.  After  a  delay  of  five  to  six 
days  at  Salonica,  they  were  sent  into  exile.  Some  were  sent  directly  from  the 

^ee  the  story  of  Mr.  G.  Atanasov,  published  in  the  Mir,  September  30/October  13. 


200  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

station  to  the  steamer;  on  embarkation  their  money  and  watches  were  taken 
from  them;  they  were  ill-treated;  sometimes  they  were  thrown  from  the  top 
of  the  ladder  into  the  hold.  A  man  from  Gumundje  had  his  ear  cut  open, 
another  his  head  broken;  some  had  bayonet  wounds,  and  all  had  been  struck 
with  the  butt  end  of  musket  or  stick." 

We  have  before  us  also  depositions  of  witnesses  as  to  what  happened  at 
the  Kailare  sub-prefecture.  Situated  between  Vodena  and  Castoria,  it  was  nat- 
urally treated  in  the  same  way.  There,  too,  Bulgarians  were  forced  to  become 
Greeks,  and  the  peasants  made  to  sign  a  declaration  testifying  that  they  had 
become  Bulgarians  only  fifteen  years  ago  and  under  compulsion  from  the 
comitadjis.  The  Slav  offices  were  destroyed;  the  Bulgarian  clergy  were  not 
allowed  to  administer  the  sacrament  until  they  had  been  ordered  to  do  so  by 
the  Greek  bishops ;  the  schoolmasters  were  driven  out  and  the  scholars  forced  to 
attend  Greek  schools  under  threats  of  punishment  for  the  parents.  Soldiers  were 
billetted  on  the  Bulgarians,  and  requisitions  made  without  either  payment  or 
receipt;  andartes,  placed  in  control  of  the  administration,  persecuted  the  Bulga- 
rian population  in  every  way,  killing  the  men,  outraging  the  women  and  burning 
the  houses  with  impunity.  We  could  give  names  of  the  persons  and  villages 
which  suffered.  The  villages  most  often  mentioned  are  Embore,  Rakita,  Biriatsi, 
Kontsi,  Debretse,  etc. 

Despite  all  these  persecutions,  it  may  be  said  that  in  Greek  Macedonia  the 
simple  fact  that  the  ethnic  difference  between  conquerors  and  oppressed  is 
greater  than  in  Servian  Macedonia  did  serve  to  protect  the  Bulgarian  population 
against  assimilation.  Although  the  victors  were  satisfied  with  having  changed 
names  and  statistics  and  teaching  the  peasants  to  say  "Good  morning"  and  "Good 
evening"  in  Greek  instead  of  in  Bulgarian,  there  was  no  real  change  in  national- 
consciousness. 

There  was  indeed  one  thing  which  hampered  the  assimilation  by  the  Greeks 
of  the  Slav  element,  namely,  the  presence  of  that  same  element  in  the  immediate 
neighborhood.  True,  in  Servian  Macedonia  the  elements  which  outside  still 
call  themselves  Bulgarian,  are  forced  to  give  themselves  out  as  pravisrbi, — 
true  Servians.  But  that  does  not  prevent  the  conservation  of  the  sentiment  of 
Slav  affinity.  In  the  allied  Servian  government,  this  sentiment  found  expres- 
sion in  a  tendency  to  desire  the  conservation  and  protection  of  the  Slav  element 
in  Greek  Macedonia.  It  is  interesting  that  the  first  news  received  from  Salonica 
by  the  Commission  of  the  Greek  drownings,  was  given  by  a  citizen  of  the  allied 
nation  which  had  just  taken  precautions  against  the  importunate  curiosity  of  the 
Commission  as  to  its  own  relations  with  the  "Macedonian  Slavs."  The  oppressed 
Slavs  in  Greek  Macedonia  in  their  turn  seemed  to  look  more  favorably  on  the 
oppressors  of  their  brothers  in  Monastir  and  Okhrida.  If  they  may  not  have 
Bulgarian  schools,  some  of  them  are  ready  to  ask  for  Servian  ones, — so  long  as 
they  may  keep  their  Slav  school.  The  only  objection  of  the  Greek  ally  to  the 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  201 

Servian  ally  is  that  the  latter  does  not  reciprocate  by  tolerating  Greek  schools 
in  Servian  Macedonia,  or,  if  he  allows  them  to  be  opened,  forbids  school  children 
to  attend  them.  Tit  for  tat.  The  Greek  papers  only  disagree  as  to  the  number 
of  Slavs  with  a  moral  right  to  protection  by  the  Slav  ally.  Recognition  of  the 
very  existence  of  the  Slav  element,  although  reduced  to  120,000,  is  thus  implied 
beyond  dispute. 

This  is  not  the  case  with  the  Moslem  element,  though  equally  numerous  in 
Greek  Macedonia.  True,  our  documents  prove  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
occupation,  when  it  was  a  question  of  ferreting  out  the  Bulgarian  committees, 
the  help  given  by  the  Turkish  element  was  highly  appreciated  by  the  andartes. 
Their  end  once  accomplished,  however,  and  especially  after  the  treaty  of  Buchar- 
est, the  tactics  adopted  towards  the  Moslems  were  entirely  changed.  The  Jeune 
Turc  seems  justified  in  its  complaints  of  the  lot  of  its  co-religionists  in  Mace- 
donia. "Mass  arrests  of  Turks  and  Jews,"  it  states  towards  the  middle  of 
October,  "take  place  daily  in  Salonica  on  the  most  ridiculous  grounds.  Espionage 
is  widely  developed  and  persecution  is  attaining  revolting  dimensions."  Unhap- 
pily the  truth  is  worse.  Another  Turkish  paper,  Tasfiri  Efkiar*  adds  that  per- 
secution extends  from  town  dwellers  to  simple  villagers.  "The  Moslems  of  the 
neighborhood  of  Poroi  (between  Doiran  and  Demir-Hissar),  were  shut  up  in 
forty  wagons  and  conveyed  to  Salonica.  The  Greek  authorities  also  persecuted 
the  Moslems  of  Langadina  (northeast  of  Salonica)  ;  on  pretext  of  disarmament 
all  the  young  people  were  conveyed  to  Salonica  and  ill  treated.  At  Saryghiol 
(near  Koukouche),  all  the  men  were  conveyed  to  Salonica  and  the  Greek  sol- 
diers then  outraged  the  women  and  young  girls.  At  Sakhna,  at  Serres  and 
Pravishta,  conversion  was  carried  on  with  such  success  that  in  the  case  of 
Sakhna  not  one  Moslem  is  left."  "The  number  of  Turkish  prisoners  in  the 
Salonica  area  amounts  to  the  enormous  total  of  5,000,"  adds  the  Echo  de  Bul- 
garie  (December  20/January  2).  Some  months  later,  Mr.  Ivanov  remarks  in 
his  "Explanatory  Notes"  that  "the  Turkish  groups  of  Saryghiol  (south  of 
Kailare),  Kailare  and  Ostrovo,  strong  in  numbers  and  prosperity,  were  partic- 
ularly severely  tried  after  the  Greek  invasion.  All  the  towns  and  the  villages 
of  the  region  were  laid  waste  and  the  population  sought  safety  in  flight.  Flight, 
too,  was  the  resource  of  the  Moslem  population  of  the  towns  in  the  Yenidje 
valley,  especially  Voden,  Negouche  (Niansta),  Karaferia  (Veria),  Yenidje- 
Vardar.  This  last  town  suffered  most  of  all ;  the  whole  market  and  the  Moslem 
quarters  were  laid  in  ruins." 

We  must  now  glance  at  Eastern  Macedonia,  of  which  we  spoke  in  chapter 
II,  and  whence  the  Bulgarian  population  fled  en  masse  to  Bulgaria,  the  Turks  and 
Greeks  taking  the  road  to  Salonica.  Documents  not  hitherto  mentioned  com- 
plete the  picture  of  what  is  almost  a  total  extermination.  As  the  most  authori- 
tative document  for  the  violence  with  which  the  Turkish  population  was  treated 


'These  two  quotations  are  from  the  Mir,  of  October  24  and  November  2  (old  style). 


202  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

by  the  Greeks,  we  publish  in  Appendix  A,  13  a,  a  complete  list  of  persons  killed 
and  pillages  effected  in  one  casa  in  Pravishta  (O.  de  Kavala).  The  original 
document  was  given  to  the  Commission  in  Turkish ;  it  is  an  official  proces-verbal, 
drawn  up  and  sealed  by  the  Moslem  community  of  Pravishta.  It  contains 
names  and  facts  solely;  but  these  names  and  facts  have  a  dreary  eloquence. 
"Of  the  20,000  Turks  of  this  casa  only  13,000  remain."  "Among  the  persons 
killed  there  are  unhappily  many  imams,  Turkish  notables  and  men  of  education. 
This  shows  that  the  Greeks  were  pursuing  a  definite  object/'  Here  is  the  pic- 
ture of  the  central  city  of  Pravishta,  taken  by  the  Bulgarian  comitadji,  Voyevoda, 
Baptchev,  but  where  the  Greek  Bishop,  presiding  at  the  improvised  tribunal, 
pronounces  the  sentences  of  death  executed  by  Baptchev,  while  protecting  the 
young  Turkish  girls  and  the  mosques  against  the  fanatical  chauvinism  of  the 
Archbishop." 

As  to  atrocities  committed  by  the  Greeks  in  the  northern  part  of  eastern 
Macedonia  (principally  populated  by  Bulgarians),  the  Commission  collected  at 
Sofia  a  portion  of  the  depositions  afterwards  published  by  Professor  Miletits.1 

Out  of  all  our  documents  we  select  as  a  specimen  the  story  of  a  merchant, 
Nicolas  Temelkov,  which  gives  a  general  picture  of  the  state  of  the  country  after 
the  retreat  of  the  Greek  army,  which  as  regards  the  whole  region  traversed 
between  Strumnitsa  and  Djoumaya,  was  picturesquely  characterized  by  another 
witness  in  the  phrase  "There  was  not  a  cock  left  to  crow."  Mr.  Temelkov,  whose 
evidence  is  not  included  in  Professor  Miletits's  document,  allows  us  to  give 
his  name.  Towards  the  end  of  August  (old  style)  he  was  returning  from  Bul- 
garia with  some  refugees.  He  crossed  the  Kresna  Valley,  in  the  upper  Strouma. 
In  the  village  of  St.  Vratche  there  were  only  some  men  feeding  on  the  corn  which 
had  fallen  on  the  road  from  the  military  convoy.  The  women  did  not  dare  to 
appear;  they  remained  hiding  in  the  mountains.  The  priest  of  the  village,  Con- 
stantine,  and  five  notables,  had  been  killed,  and  no  one  knew  where  their  bodies 
were.  Passing  through  the  village  of  Lechnitsa  you  met  nobody.  The  village  of 
Sclara  had  been  burned,  but  twelve  or  thirteen  families  were  left.  The  other 
families  were  still  in  the  mountains,  in  fear  of  another  Greek  invasion.  All  the 
women  of  the  village  between  the  ages  of  ten  and  fifty  had  been  collected  by 
the  Greeks  in  the  house  of  Mito  Konstantinov,  and  divided  among  the  soldiery 
one  woman  to  every  thirty  soldiers.  A  girl  of  eighteen  years  old,  Matsa  Andone 
Pantcheva,  who  had  finished  her  school  time,  would  not  give  herself  up.  She 
offered  them  money  to  give  to  the  women  of  the  streets  if  they  would  leave  her  in 
peace.  The  soldiers  got  sixty  Turkish  pounds.  When,  after  that,  they  still  tried 
to  outrage  her,  she  resisted,  crying,  "I  had  rather  die  honest."  She  was  killed 
by  bayonet  thrusts. 


*See  his  Greek  Atrocities  in  Macedonia  during  the  Greek  Bulgarian  war,  Sofia,  1913, 
and  Documents,  extracts  from  this  book,  published  with  certain  changes  in  style,  Sofia, 
1913. 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  203 

Mr.  Temelkov  and  his  companions  then  passed  through  the  villages  of 
Khotovo  and  Spatovo.  There  was  nobody  there ;  the  population  still  kept  to  the 
hills.  The  villages  had  been  burned  to  the  ground.  They  passed  through  Mand- 
jovo  and  Tchiflitsi,  which  the  Greek  press  stated  had  been  burned  by  the  Greek 
population,  who  would  no  longer  live  there  under  the  Bulgarian  regime.  Mr. 
Temelkov,  like  the  other  witnesses,  states  that  the  town  had  not  been  burned ;  only 
the  military  casino,  hotel  and  post  office  (in  the  same  building  as  the  casino), 
had  been  burned.  The  Greek  houses  were  empty;  the  Greeks  had  taken  their 
furniture  with  them.  Mr.  Temelkov  was  told  that  the  Greeks  emigrated  by  the 
express  orders  of  the  Greek  government;  the  order  being  given  when  it  was 
known  that  Melnik  was  to  remain  Bulgarian.  Automobiles  and  carts  were  sup- 
plied to  enable  the  Greeks  to  take  all  their  goods  with  them  to  Demir-Hissar. 
The  men  were  beaten  to  make  them  take  the  carts  and  go.  The  same  order  was 
given  and  executed  at  Nevrocope,  where  force  had  to  be  employed  to  make  the 
Greek  inhabitants  depart.  By  order  of  the  officers,  all  the  contents  of  the  big 
Bulgarian  shops  in  Melnik  belonging  to  Temelkov  Nadjiyanev  (the  father  of 
Temelkov),  and  Constantine  Pope-Tachev,  were  seized.  The  little  Bulgarian 
shops  and  private  houses  were  left  to  be  pillaged  by  the  population. 

Mr.  Temelkov  had  news  from  his  father  and  mother,  who  remained  in 
Melnik,  while  he  fled  to  Bulgaria.  The  military  authorities  sent  for  his  father 
and  said  to  him,  "What  are  you  going  to  do  now  ?  We  want  men  here,  not  bears. 
Become  a  Greek,  if  you  want  to  live  here."  Mr.  Temelkov's  father,  an  old  man 
of  sixty,  replied,  "I  was  born  in  this  country  and  I  shall  remain  here  without 
changing  my  nationality."  He  was  summoned  a  second  time  and  asked,  "Where 
are  your  sons?"  "They  are  in  Bulgaria."  "You  must  give  up  their  property." 
"They  have  none."  Then  some  officers  ransacked  the  house  and  found  the 
dowry  of  Mr.  Temelkov's  wife,  which  amounted  to  £T250.  This  money  was 
seized.  Then  Temelkov,  the  father,  a  rich  merchant,  was  asked  for  400  pairs 
of  empty  sacks  for  aniseed,  and  100  for  cotton,  which  had  cost  him  eighty 
Napoleons.  Then  Mr.  Nadjiyanev  was  taken  to  Ormane-Tchflik  and  to  Livou- 
novo,  under  pretext  of  taking  him  before  the  commander.  When  they  arrived 
at  Ormane,  he  was  threatened  with  death  and  asked  for  money.  He  promised 
to  give  it  and  the  same  Greek  officers  took  him  back  to  Melnik.  He  paid  them 
£T1SO.  He  however  possessed  another  property  at  Scalve.  All  his  corn,  wheat 
and  barley  were  seized  (30,000  and  40,000  okas)  and  his  sixteen  bullocks.  For 
all  that  £T200  was  paid  him.  Finally  on  the  Greeks'  departure,  it  was  decided 
to  kill  him  and  his  wife.  But  a  Greek  friend,  Nicolas  the  bazardji?  warned  him, 
and  advised  him  to  flee  with  the  Greeks  without  delay,  since  within  a  few  hours 
they  would  come  to  look  for  him.  He  agreed,  took  flight  and  hid  in  the  Bulga- 
rian village  of  Kaikovtsi.  While  he  was  being  searched  for  at  Demir-Hissar, 
he  escaped  on  horseback  across  the  Pirine  mountains.  But  he  did  not  return  to 
Melnik.  Worn  out,  he  stopped  at  Scalve,  and  died  there  of  exhaustion. 

'Coppersmith.  • 


204  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Counting  the  Bulgarian  villages  whose  burning  he  remembers,  Mr.  Temelkov 
names:  Marikostinovo,  Morino  Pole,  Koula,  Kapatovo,  Kroumidovo,  Dzigvelia, 
Mandjovo,  Tchiflitsi,  Khotovo,  Ladarevo,  Laskarevo,  Sclave,  Spatovo,  half  of 
Livounovo  (after  the  departure  of  the  general  staff),  Ormane  Tchiflik,  St. 
Vratche,  Polevitsa,  Khrsovo,  half  of  Vrana,  Katountsi,  Spantchevo,  the  upper 
and  the  lower  town.  He  told  us  that  only  the  mountain  villages  are  left.  The 
whole  of  the  furniture,  cattle  and  grain  was  taken  by  the  Greeks.  But  the  last 
stroke  certainly  was  the  destruction  of  the  town  of  Strumnitsa,  almost  under 
the  eyes  of  the  Commission.  An  Austrian  officer,  Mr.  Br — ,  tells  us  that  he 
was  taken  by  the  population  of  Strumnitsa  for  a  member  of  the  Commission, 
when,  after  the  end  of  the  war  he  was  making  his  way  on  horseback  between 
Sofia  and  Salonica  in  company  with  a  German  officer,  Mr.  de  R.  T.  Mr.  Br — 
published  his  story  in  the  Vienna  Reichspost,  and  sent  a  report  to  the  Austrian 
consulate  at  Sofia.  .This  is  his  story,  which  thus  falls  within  the  scope  of  the 
Commission's  inquiry: 

On  July  28  (old  style),  peace  was  concluded.  On  August  8  [the  day 
before  he  started  on  his  journey],  that  is  to  say,  ten  days  after  the  con- 
clusion of  peace,  the  Greek  military  element  began  burning  and  pillaging 
the  town.  The  method  of  incendiarism  was  as  follows :  benzine  was  poured 
on  the  different  buildings,  they  were  then  set  on  fire  and  blown  up  with 
pyroxiline  bombs.  I  have  never  been  able  to  discover  the  chemical  com- 
position of  these  bombs.  They  did  not  explode  until  thrown  upon  the  fire. 
I  sent  a  piece  to  the  Austrian  Legation  at  Sofia.  At  the  same  time  the 
Greek  soldiers  compelled  the  inhabitants  to  hide  in  their  houses,  and  cut 
off  all  the  water  pipes  and  fountains,  so  that  there  were  no  means  of  put- 
ting out  the  fire.  Throughout  the  whole  time,  between  August  8  and  15, 
motors  came  and  went  three  times  a  day  to  carry  off  the  stolen  property. 
Everything  was  carried  off  that  the  people  had  not  succeeded  in  hiding, 
even  chairs,  boxes,  frames,  portraits,  beds,  etc.  Anything  that  could  not 
be  taken  was  destroyed.  All  the  cattle  of  one  of  the  biggest  proprietors  in 
the  region,  the  Moslem  Nasif-effendi  was  stolen,  and  his  house  burned  after 
his  wife  had  been  so  outraged  that  she  died  of  it.  His  child  was  taken 
from  him  and  not  found  again.  All  the  goods  of  the  Jew  Novak  Koze 
were  taken  from  him,  and  his  wife  outraged.  A  rich  merchant,  Bandesev,  had 
all  his  goods  taken,  and  motors  came  and  went  for  two  days  to  take  every- 
thing out  of  his  house.  His  wife,  too,  was  outraged,  "and  so  on." 

Mr.  Br —  left  Strumnitsa  on  August  24  (old  style).  But  the  Commission 
has  highly  trustworthy  evidence  from  a  person  who  was  at  Strumnitsa  August 
15/28 — i.  e.,  who  saw  the  end  of  the  fire.  The  evidence  of  another  witness,  a 
Strumnitsa  governess,  Miss  Itcheva,  who  remained  in  the  town  throughout  this 
time,  has  been  published  by  Mr.  Miletits.1  From  all  these  sources  we  know 

documents,  pp.  166-168.    We  have  also  the  evidence  of  a  Bulgarian  schoolmaster,  who 
reached  Strumnitsa  on  August  19. 


THE  WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  205 

that  the  destruction  of  Strumnitsa  was  but  the  execution  of  part  of  a  plan  drawn 
up  at  the  conclusion  of  peace  by  the  Greek  authorities.  "From  July  27  on,"  says 
Miss  Itcheva,  "the  Greeks  began  a  propaganda  among  the  Greek  population,  and 
invited  them  to  leave  the  country.  They  put  into  their  minds  the  fear  of  being 
tortured  or  even  killed  by  the  Bulgarians.  They  promised  the  people  to  build 
them  a  'new  Strumnitsa'  in  the  town  of  Koukouche.1  The  Greek  king  himself 
was  going  to  look  after  the  population.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  known 
beforehand  that  after  the  forced  expatriation  of  the  Greeks,  Jews  and  Turks, 
the  town  itself  was  dedicated  to  destruction  like  Xanthi,  Gumuldjina,  and  'the 
other  places  in  Thrace.'  The  foreign  consuls  at  Strumnitsa  thus  informed, 
consulted  together  and  telegraphed  to  their  representatives  to  make  representa- 
tions at  Athens.  The  Greek  government  agreed  to  keep  all  these  places  until 
the  arrival  of  the  Bulgarian  army.  But  this  news  was  received  at  Salonica  on 
August  8/21,  the  very  day  on  which  the  fire  began  in  Strumnitsa.  During 
the  ten  previous  days  the  Greek  inhabitants  had  come  and  gone  in  the  town 
at  their  leisure,  carrying  off  their  goods  in  motors  put  at  their  disposal  by  the 
government.  The  Turks  and  Jews  had  been  compelled  to  follow  them.  This 
operation  completed,  the  Greeks  set  fire  to  the  markets  in  the  southwest  por- 
tion of  the  town,  near  the  house  of  the  Greek  doctor,  Rixopoulo.  The  idea 
was  that  the  news  being  spread  in  Salonica  before  the  catastrophe,  international 
opinion  might  be  made  to  think  that  the  population  had  set  fire  to  their  own 
houses,  out  of  fear  of  remaining  under  the  Bulgarian  yoke.  The  population 
of  the  Bulgarian  quarters  (but  a  quarter  of  the  whole),  seeing  the  market  on 
fire,  came  out  into  the  empty  streets,  and  during  the  night  of  the  8th  and 
9th  they  succeeded  in  putting  out  the  fire.  They  thought  then  that  the  Greek 
army  was  gone;  in  reality  it  was  only  hidden.  On  the  morning  of  the  9th, 
the  Greek  soldiers  appeared  and  threatened  to  kill  the  Bulgarians.  From  that 
time  the  Bulgarian  population  retired  to  its  houses  and  did  not  dare  to  come 
forth  and  put  out  the  fire.  It  was  then  that  the  Greeks  cut  the  water  pipes 
and  broke  the  fire  engines.  In  the  evening  the  fire  was  relighted,  and  during 
the  night  the  Greek  and  Turkish  quarters  began  to  burn.  The  Greek  soldiers 
no  longer  hid — a  great  number  of  witnesses  saw  them  at  work.  They  had 
bombs  in  their  hands,  which  they  put  under  the  buildings,  and  in  a  few  minutes 
the  houses  were  in  flames.  Six  or  eight  soldiers  were  seen  setting  fire  to  the 
barracks  three  times  before  they  got  it  going."  A  vlach  told  our  witness  that 
a  uniformed  Greek  policeman  had  awakened  him  and  his  family  and  told  him 
to  come  out  at  once,  as  his  house  was  going  to  be  burned,  and  would  be  as  soon 
as  they  had  cleared  out.  This  lasted  a  whole  week,  until  by  the  15th  the  entire 
town,  with  the  exception  of  the  two  Bulgarian  quarters,  lay  in  ashes.  Three 
days  later  the  Bulgarian  army  arrived.  One  of  our  informants  told  us  that 


1Vladevo,  a  village  near  Vodena,  has  actually  been  called  "New  Strumnitsa." 


206  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

an  attempt  was  made  to  get  the  Bulgarian  Lieutenant  Colonel  sign  an  official 
declaration  to  the  effect  that  the  houses  had  been  burned  by  their  owners.  The 
Bulgarian  officer  refused. 

The  Strumnitsa  affair  throws  a  vivid  light  on  a  number  of  similar  events 
where  the  intention  and  preliminary  organization  are  not  so  easily  discernible. 
If  it  seems  to  transcend  all  the  instances  hitherto  given,  this  is  simply  due  to  the 
fact  that  we  have  been  better  able  to  follow  it  up.  In  concluding  this  part  of 
our  report  with  this  act  of  unqualified  horror,  we  have  only  to  set  down  the 
moral  conclusion. 

The  events  described  above  serve  to  afford  one  more  confirmation  of  an 
ancient  truth,  which  it  is  useful  to  recall.  That  legitimate  national  sentiment 
which  inspires  acts  of  heroism,  and  the  perverted  and  chauvinistic  nationalism 
which  leads  to  crime  are  but  two  closely  related  states  of  the  collective  mind 
Perhaps  indeed  the  state  of  mind  is  the  same,  its  social  value  varying  with  the 
object  to  which  it  is  directed.  We  regard  as  just  and  legitimate,  we  even  admire 
the  deeds,  the  manifestations  by  which  nationality  defends  its  existence.  We 
speak  constantly  of  the  "good  cause"  of  oppressed  nationalities,  or  nationalities 
struggling  against  difficulties  to  find  themselves.  But  when  these  same  nation- 
alities pass  from  the  defensive  to  the  offensive,  and  instead  of  securing  their  own 
existence,  begin  to  impinge  on  the  existence  of  another  national  individuality, 
they  are  doing  something  illicit,  even  criminal.  In  such  a  case,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  theory  of  State  interests  and  the  State  feeling  or  instinct,  is  invoked.  But 
the  State  itself  must  learn  to  conform  to  the  principle  of  the  moral  freedom  of 
modern  nationalities,  as  it  has  learned  to  accept  that  of  individual  freedom.  It 
is  not  nationality  which  should  sacrifice  its  existence  to  any  erroneous  or  out- 
worn idea  of  the  State.  In  applying  this  sound  maxim  to  the  facts  of  the  second 
Balkan  war,  the  conclusion  is  forced  upon  one,  that  in  so  far  as  the  treaty  of 
Bucharest  has  sanctioned  the  illegitimate  claims  of  victorious  nationalities,  it  is  a 
work  of  injustice  which  in  all  probability  will  fail  to  resist  the  action  of  time. 
Would  it  not  be  more  in  consonance  with  the  real  feeling  of  solidarity  of  peoples 
to  re-cast  the  treaty,  than  to  wait  for  the  development  and  ripening  of  its  evil 
fruit?  The  question  of  the  moment  is  not  a  new  territorial  division,  such  as 
would  probably  provoke  that  new  conflict  which  the  whole  world  wishes  to  avoid. 
Mutual  tolerance  is  all  that  is  required;  and  it  is  justified  by  the  fact  that  the 
offence  is  mutual.  The  confused  tangle  of  Balkan  nationalism  can  not  be 
straightened  out,  either  by  attempts  to  assimilate  at  any  price,  or  by  a  new  migra- 
tion. But  in  the  question  of  the  Macedonian  Slavs  in  Greek  Macedonia,  each 
national  group  needs  the  protection  of  some  neighboring  State, — the  Roumanians, 
the  Bulgarians,  the  Turks,  the  Greeks,  even  the  Servians.  The  way  to  arrive 
at  such  mutual  protection  is  simple  enough — a  return  to  the  Greek-Bulgarian 
proposals  so  wrongly  rejected  at  the  Bucharest  Conference.  All  that  is  needed 
is  an  effective  mutual  guarantee  of  religious  and  educational  autonomy.  If  there 


THE   WAR  AND  THE   NATIONALITIES  207 

be  any  utility  in  the  grave  lesson  of  the  events  we  have  described,  it  must  be  to 
lead  the  allies  of  the  day  before  yesterday,  the  impassioned  foes  of  yesterday,  the 
jealous  and  frigid  neighbors  of  today  to  solidarity  tomorrow  in  their  work  for 
the  welfare  of  the  Balkans.  The  treaty  of  Bucharest  needs  to  be  revised  and 
completed  in  this  sense,  if  it  is  not  to  be  broken  down  by  some  new  caprice  of 
history. 


CHAPTER     V 


The  War  and  International  Law 

Our  whole  report  is  an  answer  to  the  question  put  in  this  chapter.  That 
answer  may  be  summed  up  in  a  simple  statement  that  there  is  no  clause  in  inter- 
national law  applicable  to  land  war  and  to  the  treatment  of  the  wounded,  which 
was  not  violated,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  by  all  the  belligerents. 

This  chapter  is  not,  however,  a  mere  recapitulation  of  what  has  been 
already  said.  We  have  reserved  for  this  stage  some  questions  touching  more 
nearly  on  the  domain  of  international  law  in  time  of  war.  As  for  the  ques- 
tions already  considered  we  shall  use  the  opportunity  of  adding  supplementary 
notes  and  quoting  certain  documents  not  referred  to  in  previous  chapters. 

1.  Before  speaking  of  the  war,  let  us  look  first  at  the  question  of  treaties. 
We  have  seen  that  the  Balkan  war  was  the  result  of  the  violation  (an  extraor- 
dinary violation,  be  it  said)  of  a  treaty  which  was  itself  the  basis  of  common 
action  crowned  with  success,  and  a  treaty  which  assumed  the  continuance  of 
common  action  for  eight  years.  We  have  seen,  it  is  true,  that  Servian  politicians 
plead  not  circumstances  which  did  not  extenuate  (since  they  did  not  recognize 
what  they  did  as  a  misdeed),  but  which  would  have  authorized  their  violation 
of  the  treaty  of  February  29/March  13,  1913,  with  the  Bulgarians.  They  recalled 
a  clause  of  which  much  has  been  said  in  international  law  to  the  effect  that 
treaties  are  to  be  observed — pacta  sunt  servanda — only  if  there  is  not  change 
in  the  condition  of  things — rebus  sic  stantibus.  After  the  statesmen1  came  the 
professors  to  prove,  on  scientific  data,  the  sound  foundations  of  these  patriotic 
claims.  Dr.  Mileta,  Dr.  Novakovits  and  Dr.  Lazar  Markovits  (who  translated 
Balcanicus'  book  into  German,)  published  in  the  Belgrade  Diebo  two  articles  in 
which  they  had  recourse  to  KefHer,  as  authority  Bluntschli,  Jellinek,  Martens,  and 
above  all  a  recent  study  by  Mr.  Erich  Kauffmann,  professor  at  Kiel  University, 
Das  Wesen  des  Volkerrechts  und  die  claudula  rebus  sic  stantibus  (Tubingen 
Mohr,  1911,  p.  231)  to  prove  that  Servia  had  a  right  to  demand  revision  of  the 
treaty  and,  in  case  of  refusal,  to  regard  it  as  abrogated.2  On  the  authority  of 
Professor  Kauffmann,  the  Servian  professors  cited  as  precedents,  the  Russian 
declarations  of  October  29-31,  1870,  on  the  Black  Sea,  and  of  June  13,  1886, 
on  Batoum;  the  refusal  of  Prussia  and  Austria  Hungary  in  1864  to  conform 


1In  Chapter  I,  reference  was  made  to  a  book  by  Balcanicus  (pseudonym  of  one  of  the 
Members  of  the  Cabinet)  which  opened  the  campaign  for  treaty  revision  in  the  govern- 
ment journal  Sammouprava  in  April,  1913.  His  book  consists  of  the  collected  articles  that 
appeared  in  the  paper. 

2See  the  reprint  of  the  articles  by  Novakovits  and  Markovits  (in  Servian)  Srpsko- 
bourgarski  ongovove  so  glediehta  medjunarodnog  prava.  (The  Serbo-Bulgarian  treaty 
from  the  standpoint  of  international  law.)  Belgrade,  1913. 


THE   WAR   AND   INTERNATIONAL   LAW  209 

to  the  London  Protocol  of  1852;  the  annexation  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  in 
1908.  The  authors  of  the  articles  add  the  revision,  in  1912,  of  the  Franco- 
Spanish  treaty  of  1904  on  Morocco. 

This  report  is  not  a  legal  study,  and  we  may  leave  to  specialists  the  task 
of  deciding  whether  the  clause  rebus  sic  stantibus  can  be  applied  to  the  question 
of  revision  and  to  the  breach  of  the  treaty.  The  Commission  expressed  its 
opinion  (Chapter  I)  when  they  showed  that  the  allegations  of  a  change  in  the 
circumstances  was  but  a  pis  oiler,  to  which  recourse  was  had  upon  the  failure 
of  the  attempts  at  giving  a  forced  interpretation  to  the  terms  of  the  treaty  and 
thereby  proving  that  the  Bulgarians  had  been  the  first  to  violate  it.  What  makes 
the  violation  particularly  odious,  is  that  a  condition  vital,  nay  essential,  to  one 
of  the  contracting  parties,  indispensable  to  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty,  was 
violated  by  another  party  as  soon  as  the  common  end  had  been  attained.  The 
Servians  did  not  show  what  the  English  call  "fair  play."  It  is  true  that  on  both 
sides  the  question  was  regarded  as  one  of  "force" — (eine  Macht-frage).  If 
formal  right  was  entirely  on  the  side  of  the  Bulgarians,  they  lost  their  moral 
right  in  so  far  as  they  transformed  the  war  from  one  of  liberation  to  one  of 
conquest  (see  Chapter  X).  But  even  so  the  moral  right  of  Macedonia  remained, 
guaranteed  by  the  treaty,  violated  by  the  war,  and  abolished  by  the  treaty  of 
Bucharest.  If  the  clause  rebus  sic  stantibus  could  be  applied  to  the  loss  of 
the  Adriatic  and  the  acquisition  of  Adrianople,  why  could  it  not  also  be  applied 
to  the  Roumanian  occupation?  If  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  treaty  ceased  to  be  in 
force  from  the  moment  when  there  was  no  longer  any  real  force  to  defend  it, 
why  should  the  treaty  of  Bucharest  stand  after  the  occupation  ceased?  Such 
are  the  dangerous  conclusions  that  could  be  drawn  from  the  Servian  application 
of  the  clause, — and  above  all  from  its  method  of  application.  It  may  be  said, 
with  Jellinek,  that  there  is  not  only  no  international  treaty,  but  even  no  general 
law  to  which  the  clause  rebus  sic  stantibus  may  not  be  applied.  There  could 
be  no  progress  were  there  no  means  of  adapting  legislation  to  changing  cir- 
cumstances. But  it  does  not  follow  that  the  series  of  necessary  adaptations  can 
be  understood  as  a  series  of  breaches  of  the  law  (Rechtsbruche} .  One  law  is 
changed  by  another  law.  A  treaty  must  be  changed  by  another  treaty.  This 
principle  is  formally  recognized  in  one  of  the  cases  cited  as  "precedents"  by  the 
Servian  professors,  that  of  Russia's  refusal  in  1870  to  regard  herself  as  bound 
by  Articles  XI  and  XIV  of  the  treaty  of  Paris  of  1856.  In  a  note  of  November, 
1870,  Lord  Granville  protested  categorically  against  such  a  violation  of  the 
principle  of  the  obligatory  force  of  treaties.  Italy  and  Austria  Hungary  sup- 
ported the  English  protest.  A  new  conference  was  summoned  in  London  on 
January  17,  1871,  and  on  Lord  Granville's  motion  it  began  its  sitting  with  this 
unanimous  resolution:  "The  plenipotentiaries  of  North  Germany,  Austria  Hun- 
gary, Great  Britain,  Italy,  Russia  and  Turkey,  this  day  joined  in  conference, 
recognize  that  it  is  an  essential  principle  of  the  law  of  nations  that  no  Power  can 
release  itself  from  its  treaty  obligations,  or  modify  their  provisions,  without 


210  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

the  consent  of  the  contracting  parties  reached  by  friendly  understanding."  This 
is  a  principle  which  can  not  be  abrogated  by  any  precedent  or  sophistry,  if  inter- 
national law  is  to  be  a  reality  at  all. 

2.  The  question  of  the  opening  of  hostilities  is  regulated  by  the  Convention 
of  the  Second  Hague  Conference,  the  first  article  of  which  lays  it  down  that 
"hostilities  between  the  contracting  Powers  can  not  commence  without  pre- 
liminary notice,  of  no  equivocal  kind,  which  must  take  the  form  either  of  a 
reasoned  declaration  of  war  or  of  an  ultimatum  with  a  conditional  declaration 
of  war."  The  Conference  however  rejected,  on  the  ground  of  "the  exigencies 
of  modern  war,"  the  Netherlands'  amendment  which  tried  to  insist  on  twenty- 
four  hours'  delay  after  the  declaration.1 

Much  was  not  asked  therefore,  and  the  little  that  was  asked  did  not  rule 
out  surprises  or  the  use  of  military  ruse.  But  the  case  of  course  was  not  fore- 
seen of  a  State's  opening  hostilities  without  itself  knowing  clearly  whether  it 
wished  to  begin  war.  It  is  true  that  there  could  be  no  surprise,  since  the  Ser- 
vians and  Greeks  had  regarded  war  as  inevitable  from  the  beginning  of  time. 
They  were  in  fact  in  a  much  better  state  of  preparation,  from  a  military  point 
of  view,  than  the  Bulgarians.  The  latter  in  beginning  war  were  "without  being 
aware  of  it,  playing  the  Servians'  game,"  as  Mr.  de  Penennrun  well  observes.2 
As  for  the  Greeks,  we  have  seen  that  King  Constantine  left  Athens  for  Salonica  on 
June  14/27,  with  the  war  manifesto  in  his  pocket  and  "grounds  for  supposing 
that  war  would  that  week  begin  all  along  the  line  from  Pirot  to  Elevtera."3 
Were  General  Savov's  telegrams  haply  known  to  the  Greeks?  Anyhow  the 
element  of  the  unexpected  in  the  opening  of  hostilities  was  evidently  taken  thor- 
oughly into  consideration  by  the  adversaries.  But  this  does  not  prevent  the 
judgment  that  the  steps  taken  by  the  Bulgarians  did  formally  contravene  in- 
ternational endeavor  to  make  appeal  to  mediation  or  arbitration,  which  in  this 
case  was  provided  for  in  the  treaty.  The  undertaking  to  this  effect  in  the  Serbo- 
Bulgarian  treaty  was  formal.  A  mutual  undertaking  was  made  in  Article  4  of 
the  secret  annex,  in  terms  that  admitted  of  no  tergiversation  or  misunderstand- 
ing: "Any  difference  that  may  arise  as  regards  the  interpretation  or  execution 
of  any  one  of  the  clauses  of  the  treaty,  of  this  secret  annex  and  of  the  military 
convention,  shall  be  submitted  for  definitive  decision  to  Russia  as  soon  as  one 
of  the  two  parties  shall  have  declared  that  they  regard  it  as  impossible  to  reach 
an  understanding  by  direct  negotiation."  The  Servians  had  consented  to  the 
execution  of  this  clause  and  their  reservations  were  in  no  sense  obligatory  on  the 


'See  the  discussion  on  this  subject  at  the  Second  Hague  Conference.    Lemonon,  344-345. 

2Cf.  up.  cit.,  p.  72.  Mr.  de  Penennrun  published  a  fac-simile  (pp.  32  and  48)  of  an 
order  taken  on  a  Bulgarian  officer  and  dated  June  16/29,  with  dispositions  for  the  com- 
mencement of  hostilities  on  the  morning  of  the  17/30.  The  Bulgarians  on  their  part  have 
published  a  fac-simile  of  the  war  proclamation  prepared  in  advance  by  the  Servians  with 
the  date  June  18  inserted  in  writing  in  the  printed  text  (see  the  Mir  of  June  28).  The 
printed  proclamation  ran — "Our  Greek  allies"  and  "our  Montenegrin. brothers -. march  with 
us  against  the  Bulgarians." 

8See  Chapter  IV,  the  article  by  Proodos  of  June  14/27. 


THE   WAR  AND   INTERNATIONAL   LAW  211 

arbiter.  Had  the  Bulgarians,  after  this,  violated  the  clause  while  continuing  to 
invoke  it,  they  would  have  sanctioned  the  violations  which  the  Servians  had 
allowed  themselves  in  Macedonia,  and  dealt  a  final  blow  at  the  legal  existence 
of  the  treaty.  This  is  why,  while  recognizing  that  Servia's  violation  made  con- 
flict inevitable,  the  responsibility  of  formal  breach  must  lie  with  the  Bulgarians. 

The  element  of  ruse  was  not  lacking  either.  The  Servian  papers  have  pub- 
lished stories  of  a  banquet  given  by  Bulgarian  officers  to  Servian  officers,  at 
which  they  were  photographed  together  a  few  hours  before  the  battle;  and  told 
hoWj  as  they  took  their  visitors  home,  the  Bulgarians  measured  the  distances 
and  observed  the  dispositions  of  the  advance  guard.  The  Servians  also  accused 
the  Bulgarians  of  having  tried  to  prejudice  international  opinion  by  instructing 
their  Ambassador  at  Belgrade,  Mr.  Tochev,  to  enter  a  protest  against  an  alleged 
act  of  Servian  aggression  eight  hours  after  the  nocturnal  attack  of  June  16/29- 
17/30.  If  as  there  is  reason  to  suppose,  although  Mr.  Tochev  denied  it  in  the 
press,  he  was  one  of  those  who  pressed  on  the  war  and  was  au  courant  with  the 
events  that  were  to  take  place,  this  action  is  all  the  more  blameworthy.  But  to 
accuse  Mr.  Tochev  of  not  having  been  in  a  position  to  know  what  was  happening 
on  the  Bregalnitsa  at  the  moment  when  he  was  making  his  remonstrance  at  the 
Ministry  at  Belgrade,  is  excessive.  The  telephone  was  there;  thanks  to  it,  Mr. 
Hartvig  could  accuse  Mr.  Danev,  on  June  9,  of  "protesting"  against  Servian 
agreement  to  Russian  arbitration ;  and  it  must  have  been  in  equally  good  working 
order  a  week  later.1 

3.  We  are  on  much  firmer  ground  when  we  pass  to  the  law  and  custom  of 
land  warfare,  violated  by  all  the  belligerents  despite  the  existence  of  an  inter- 
national convention  signed  by  them  all:  namely,  the  "Convention  concerning  the 
laws  and  customs  of  land  warfare,"  and  the  annex  accompanying  it,  elaborated 
at  the  Second  Hague  Conference  in  1907,  which  have  replaced  the 
Convention  of  July  29,  1899,  signed  by  the  Powers  after  the  first  Hague 
Conference.  Bulgaria,  it  is  true,  made  certain  reserves  on  the  question  of  an 
amendment  changing  the  1899  Convention.  This  amendment  forbade  any  bel- 
ligerent to  force  the  members  belonging  to  the  nation  of  his  opponents  dwelling 
in  his  territory,  to  take  part  in  operations  of  war  against  their  own  country,  and 
provided  further  that  if  the  said  belligerent  invaded  the  enemy's  country  he  might 
not  compel  the  inhabitants  to  give  information  about  the  opposing  army  and  its 
means  of  defence.  But  with  this  exception,  Bulgaria,  like  the  other  representa- 
tives of  the  Balkan  States,  signed  the  Convention. 

In  its  first  article  the  Convention  lays  it  down  that  "the  contracting  powers 
shall  give  their  armed  land  forces  instructions  in  conformity  with  the  regula- 
tions *  *  *  annexed  to  the  present  Convention."  Since  by  Article  3  the 
belligerent  party  was  made  "responsible  for  all  acts  committed  by  persons  form- 
ing part  of  its  armed  forces"  (and  under  "armed  forces"  the  regulations  com- 


1Mr.  Tochev  has   denied   these   revelations  which   Mr.   Hartvig  himself  said   were   in- 
correctly reported  by  his  interviewer,  Mr.  Gantchev.    See  the  Mir,  November  13/30,  1913. 


212  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

prised,  over  and  above  the  regular  army,  the  "militia"  and  "volunteer  corps"), 
it  might  have  been  expected  that  the  governments  signing  the  Convention  would 
feel  a  particular  interest  in  seeing  that  their  army  knew  their  obligations.  Was 
this  done  in  the  Balkans?  In  particular,  were  any  such  notions  introduced  into 
the  military  instruction  of  soldiers  and  officers?  The  Commission's  information 
on  this  important  head  is  incomplete,  owing  to  the  lack  of  aid  from  the  Greek 
and  Servian  governments  in  their  inquiry  into  the  war.  Indirectly,  however,  the 
conclusion  may  be  reached  that  the  1907  Convention  (and  likewise  that  of  1899), 
remained  unknown  to  the  Balkan  armies  generally,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  one  or  two  isolated  officers.  All  that  was  known  was  the  Geneva  Convention, 
more  or  less.  Today,  as  in  1900,  "the  conscientious  exercise  of  the  Hague  Con- 
vention by  the  governments  signing  it,  is  still  to  come.  They  must  give  their 
armies  instruction  in  conformity  with  the  Convention.  It  is  desirable  that  such 
instruction  should  form  part  of  the  compulsory  teaching  in  military  training 
establishments  and  in  the  instruction  of  the  soldier.  Only  on  this  condition  can 
the  application  of  the  Hague  Convention  be  seriously  guaranteed."1  In  the 
Balkans  these  words  of  Mr.  Marten's  are  at  this  day  a  puim  desiderium  as  they 
were  ten  years  ago.  As  far  as  the  Commission  is  aware,  exception  can  only  be 
made,  and  that  to  a  limited  extent,  in  the  case  of  Bulgaria.  The  Commission 
learned  that  the  Convention  of  Geneva,  at  any  rate,  was  taught  to  the  officers 
in  training,  not  to  the  soldiers.  Only  in  Bulgaria  was  the  Commission  able, 
after  repeated  attempts  and  through  a  private  source,  to  procure  documents 
showing  that  during  the  last  war  at  least  some  efforts  were  made  by  the  heads 
of  the  different  army  corps  to  stop  crimes  against  the  laws  and  customs  of  war. 
These  documents  possess  such  interest  in  view  of  the  Commission's  object,  that 
they  are  here  translated  verbatim,  with  regret  that  they  are  the  only  ones  we 
can  quote: 

I 

Order  to   the  Twenty-second  Infantry  Thracian  Regiment  of  his  Royal  Majesty  Charles 
Edward  Saxe  Coburg  Gotha  N.  95.    October  14,  1912,  Pekhtchevo  Camp 

I  have  noticed  that  certain  soldiers  of  the  regiment,  after  crossing  the  frontier,  com- 
mit arbitrary  acts  which  become  serious  crimes  in  time  of  war.  I  see  with  great  regret  that 
the  heads  of  companies  consider  these  acts  lightly  as  of  no  weight,  and  permit  them  to  be 
done  under  their  eyes.  Thus  in  the  camp  at  Tsarevo-Selo,  I  saw  some  soldiers  leave  the 
camp  and  go  into  the  neighboring  village,  which  had  been  abandoned  by  its  inhabitants,  to 
pillage,  each  for  himself,  forgetful  of  his  duty  of  remaining  at  his  post.  I  have  also  seen, 
in  camp,  soldiers  taking  from  somewhere  unknown  goods  and  cattle  in  order  to  make 
themselves  a  meal  different  from  the  company's.  Thus  a  large  number  scattered.  This 
shows  either  that  the  soldiers  are  too  greedy  or  that  their  superiors  do  not  look  after  their 
food.  I  have  also  seen  some  soldiers  either  through  negligence  or  by  intention,  destroying 
the  telegraph  lines,  doing  damage  to  houses  left  vacant  by  the  people  and  even  going  into 
Bulgarian  houses.  [Here  there  is  a  small  lacuna  in  the  MSS.]  Some  of  them  behaved  ill 
to  the  wounded  and  captive  enemy  soldiers.  It  might  seem  superfluous,  but  it  is  necessary 
to  recall  to  the  captains  of  companies  that  it  is  their  duty  to  explain  to  the  soldiers  the 
provisions  of  the  laws  and  the  responsibility  of  anyone  offending  against  them.  I  order 
that  the  following  instructions  as  to  foraging  and  the  penal  laws  be  conveyed  to  all  the 
soldiery : 

JSee  preface  to  a  book  by  Mr.  F.  de  Martens,  La  Paix  et  la  Guerre.    Paris,  1901. 


THE   WAR   AND   INTERNATIONAL   LAW  213 

1.  All  factories,  furnaces,  workshops,  military  depots,  transports,  provisions,  State  and 
communal  banks  within  the   sphere  of  our  army  are  military  booty.     The  property  and 
provisions  of  individuals  are  not  to  be  touched.     If  the  population  has  left  the  town  or 
village,  but  the  authorities  remain,  their  property  also  is  inviolable.     Even  in  cases  where 
there  are  no  public  powers,  private  property  is  regarded  as  belonging  to  the  State  or  the 
commune.     Military  booty  is  State  property.     This  is  why  the  appropriation  of  objects  of 
military  booty  is  regarded  and  punished  as  a  theft  of  State  property. 

When  a  regimental  •  detachment  enters  an  inhabited  place  where  there  are  goods  form- 
ing military  booty,  the  head  of  the  detachment  must  take  steps  to  preserve  these  objects 
and  if  possible  remove  them  after  making  a  report  to  the  general  staff  of  the  regiment;  but 
he  must  not  take  anything  without  express  orders.  The  head  of  a  detachment  may  not 
take  goods  he  needs  except  in  case  of  extreme  necessity,  or  when  permission  has  not  ar- 
rived in  time. 

When  a  detachment  gets  no  supplies  of  food,  the  head  may  make  requisition  himself 
of  what  is  necessary  to  feed  his  men  and  fill  up  his  reserve,  if  broken  into.  In  such  a  case 
he  must  send  in  a  report.  Receipts  must  be  given  for  goods  requisitioned. 

Soldiers  are  absolutely  forbidden  to  prepare  their  food  themselves.  The  ration  allowed 
is  more  than  sufficient.  It  should  be  remembered  that  it  is  one  of  the  most  important  of 
the  captain's  duties  to  know  how  to  make  good  use  of  local  food  supplies. 

2.  The   soldiers  must   be  made  to   understand   that   the   Turkish  telegraph   lines   are 
necessary  for  our  communications,  and  they  must  not  destroy  them. 

3.  It  must  be  remembered  that  military  honor,  the  laws  and  customs  of  war  and  inter- 
national conventions  oblige  us  to  treat  the  peaceful  population  of  the  enemy's  country  well 
and  prisoners  of  war  the  same.     It  is  not  becoming  'in  a  soldier  to  show  courage  against 
a   disarmed  enemy,   incapable   of  defending  himself.     Prisoners   are  in  the   power  of  our 
government,  not  of  the  individuals  and  corps  who  have  captured  them.     Ill  treatment  of 
prisoners  is  forbidden;  to  assassinate  an  enemy  soldier  who  has  given  himself  up  or  been 
taken,  is  to  commit  a  murder.     To  pillage  dead  or  wounded  soldiers  and  prisoners  is  also 
a  crime  according  to  our  laws. 

4.  The  following  articles  of  the  military  penal  code  are  to  be  read  to  the  soldiers : 

Article  241.  Those  guilty  of  pillaging  the  dead  on  the  battlefield  ar.e  committed  to  a 
disciplinary  company  for  six  months  to  one  and  one-half  years,  with  confinement  in  cells 
and  transference  to  the  second  conduct  grade. 

Article  242.  Those  guilty  of  pillaging  the  wounded  or  prisoners  are  committed  to 
a  disciplinary  company  for  two  to  three  years  with  confinement  in  the  cells  and  trans- 
ference to  the  second  conduct  grade.  If  the  pillage  has  been  accompanied  with  violence 
the  punishment  is  death. 

Article  243.  Anyone  guilty  of  having  intentionally  burned  or  otherwise  destroyed 
munitions  of  war  or  other  objects  of  defence  and  commissariat,  in  places  being  de- 
fended against  the  enemy,  or  of  destroying  or  damaging  the  telegraphs,  water  pipes, 
railways,  bridges,  dykes  and  other  means  of  communication,  shall  be  punished  with 
death. 

Article  246.  Those  guilty  of  premeditated  murder,  of  outrage,  pillage,  brigandage  and 
premeditated  arson,  shall  be  punished  with  death. 

Seal  of  the  Regiment. 

Commander  of  the  Regiment,  COLONEL  SAVOV. 
Adjutant  Major,  CAPTAIN  GHIGEV. 

II 

Army  Order  No.  69,  Lozengrad   (Kirk  Kilisse} ,  December  13/26,  1912 

Information  has  reached  the  general  staff  which,  to  our  great  regret,  causes  us  to  suspect 
that  certain  individuals  and  corps  allowed  themselves  to  commit  with  impunity  various  acts 
of  pillage  and  violence  against  the  peaceable  population  of  the  conquered  countries.  Since 
actions  of  this  kind,  highly  blameable  and  inhuman,  compromise  the  Bulgarian  name  and  the 
Bulgarian  nation  in  a  high  degree,  and  on  the  other  hand  sap  the  confidence  of  our  future 
subjects  (especially  the  peaceful  Moslem  population)  in  our  power  to  guarantee  their 
honor,  property  and  life,  I  order : 

1.  That  the  commanders  of  the  armies  and  the  military  governors  take  severe  and 
prompt  measures  to  open  an  inquiry  on  actions  of  this  kind  committed  in  the  zone  of 
occupation  of  the  army  under  their  charge,  and  to  bring  the  culprits  immediately  before  a 
tribunal  in  accordance  with  the  law,  without  distinction  of  rank  or  class.  *  *  *  The 


214  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

members  of  the  Military  Hierarchy  are  notified  that  they  must  be  severe  and  show  no  clem- 
ency in  suppressing  actions  of  this  kind;  they  must  not  forget  the  weight  of  responsi- 
bility resting  on  them  if  they  do  not  observe  this  conduct. 

2.  That  the  most  stringent  measures  be  taken  to  introduce  order  and  discipline  in  the 
rear  guard  of  the  army.     The  persons  not  belonging  to  the  army,  and  those  who  while 
belonging  to  the  army,  do  not  behave  worthily,  are  to  be  sent  immediately  into  the  Kingdom. 

3.  That  the  military  as  a  whole  be  warned  that  the  peaceful  population  of  the  country 
occupied  is  placed  without  distinction  of  creed  or  nationality  under  the  protection  of  our 
military  laws,  and  that  in  conformity  with  these  laws  any  unjustifiable  severity,  any  violence 
and  any  injustice  will  be  punished.    I  invite  the  military  and  civil  authorities  to  devote  them- 
selves to  the  attainment  of  the  end  proposed. 

4.  In  conclusion,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  we  have  undertaken  the  war  in  the  name  of  an 
elevated  human  ideal — the  liberation  of  this  population  from  a  regime  made  insupportable 
by  its  severity  and  its  injustice.    May  God  help  the  valiant  sons  of  Bulgaria  to  realize  this 
noble  ideal,  may  they  assist  in  restraining  one  another  from  compromising  this  great  and 
glorious  work  in  the  eyes  of  the  civilized  world,  and  of  their  dear  native  land ! 

The  Aide-de-Camp  of  the  Commander  in  Chief. 

GENERAL  LIEUTENANT  OF  THE  GENERAL  STAFF  SAVOV. 

It  is  with  the  sense  of  moral  well  being  that  one  pauses,  in  the  midst  of 
the  horrors  which  we  have  been  compelled  to  describe,  to  read  these  lines,  so 
different  in  their  spirit  from  the  august  threats  which  speak  in  the  well  known 
telegram  of  King  Constantine:  "To  my  profound  regret  I  find  myself  involved 
in  the  necessity  of  making  reprisals  in  order  to  inspire  their  authors  (the  authors 
of  the  'Bulgarian  monstrosities'),  with  salutary  fear  and  to  cause  them  to 
reflect  before  committing  similar  atrocities."  To  compare  the  conscientious  spirit 
which  animates  these  men,  full  of  desire  to  preserve  the  high  character  of  their 
mission,  with  the  boastfulness  based  on  hatred  and  reproach  for  "barbarian 
hordes"  who  "have  no  longer  the  right  to  be  classed  in  the  number  of  civilized 
peoples,"  is  to  be  prepared  to  see  a  change  in  the  standard  of  values. 

Alas,  in  the  actual  practice 'of  the  "laws  and  customs  of  war,"  the  contrast 
grows  less.  The  sublime  and  the  hateful,  heroism  and  barbarism,  come  neaf 
together.  Nevertheless,  the  desire  to  remain  just  and  noble  is  a  merit  which 
we  desire  to  note.  It  is  a  tendency  we  have  only  found  among  Bulgarian  officers 
and  intellectuals.  It  will  certainly  cause  us  satisfaction  if,  after  the  publication 
of  this  report,  the  information  lacking  to  us  shall  be  produced  in  the  shape  of 
similar  documents,  which  not  satisfied  to  make  a  candid  avowal  were  equally 
anxious  to  apply  a  remedy.  Unhappily,  other  indications  prove  that  even  the 
consciousness  of  having  committed  faults  and  crimes  is  wanting. 

Faults  and  crimes  are  found  in  profusion  everywhere.  We  will  recapitulate 
them,  comparing  the  sad  reality  with  the  fine  resolutions  taken  in  the  Hague 
Convention  of  1907,  which  were  signed  by  the  belligerents.  In  our  classification, 
we  will  follow  the  order  of  the  articles  in  the  Convention.  We  begin  with  the 
important  question  "Prisoners  of  War." 

Article  4.  Prisoners  of  war  are  in  the  power  of  the  enemy  government,  but  not  of 
the  individuals  and  corps  who  have  captured  them.  They  are  to  be  treated  with  humanity. 
All  their  personal  possessions,  except  arms,  horses  and  military  papers,  remain  their 
property. 

Article  5.     Prisoners  of  war  may  be  subjected  to  imprisonment  in  any  town,  fortress, 


THE   WAR   AND   INTERNATIONAL   LAW  215 

camp  or  place,  with  the  obligation  of  not  going  outside  certain  fixed  limits;  but  they 
may  not  be  imprisoned  unless  the  security  of  the  State  urgently  demands  it,  and  then 
only  during  the  continuance  of  the  circumstances  necessitating  this  step. 

Article  6.  The  State  may  employ  prisoners  *  *  *  with  the  exception  of  officers, 
on  works.  These  works  shall  not  be  excessive,  and  must  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
operations  of  war  *  *  *  Work  done  for  the  State  shall  be  paid  for  according  to  the 
military  rates  in  force  *  *  The  Government  *  *  *  is  charged  with  their  mainte- 
nance. As  regards  food,  sleeping  accommodation  and  clothing  prisoners  shall  be  treated 
on  the  same  footing  as  the  government  troops  *  *  *  Prisoners  escaping  may  be  sub- 
jected to  disciplinary  penalties. 

Article  23.  To  kill  or  wound  an  enemy  who  having  laid  down  his  arms,  or  having 
no  means  of  defence,  has  yielded  at  discretion,  is  forbidden. 

What  a  gulf  between  these  generous  maxims  of  an  enlightened  age  and  the 
realities  of  the  Balkan  war!  Inspiration  in  the  one  case  is  drawn  from  the 
principle  of  Montesquieu:  "The  whole  right  which  war  can  give  over  captives 
is  to  secure  their  person  so  that  they  can  no  longer  do  any  harm." 

In  the  other  case  we  go  back  almost  to  the  maxims  of  Germanicus  and  of 
antiquity  as  a  whole:  "Make  no  prisoners."  Their  fate  here  is  decided  by 
revenge  and  cupidity,  the  sole  difference  being  that  instead  of  being  carried  into 
slavery,  people  are  pillaged  and  killed,  or  else  killed  and  pillaged.  Prisoners  are 
still  made,  but  very  few  on  the  battlefield,  and  those  taken  are  often  not  left  to 
live.  The  overheated  mind  of  the  soldier  can  not  understand  that  the  disarmed' 
and  wounded  enemy  whom  he  finds  lying  on  the  ground  is  a  prisoner  of  war, 
whom  he  ought  neither  to  kill  nor  to  wound  in  accordance  with  Article  23  of  the 
Convention  quoted,  and  Article  2,  of  the  revised  Convention  of  Geneva  (1906).1 
In  the  Balkans  they  kill  their  man.  If  he  is  made  prisoner,  disapprobation  from 
very  high  quarters  is  sometimes  incurred.  "What  is  the  use  of  dragging  this 
rubbish  about?"  Such  was  the  phrase  reported  to  the  Commission  by  a  Bul- 
garian prisoner  who  said  he  had  heard  it  spoken  by  a  high  Servian  official, 
when  the  ambulances  were  carrying  the  Bulgarian  wounded. 

As  to  the  Bulgarians,  numerous  cases  are  quoted  in  our  Chapter  III,  on  the 
assertion  of  documents  collected  by  the  Servian  general  staff.  For  the  Greeks 
we  have,  in  the  first  place,  the  admissions  made  in  the  famous  letters  and  reports 
of  their  soldiers.  "We  only  took  (during  an  attack)  a  few  (prisoners)  whom 
we  killed,  for  such  were  our  orders." 

It  is  still  more  horrible  that  when  the  battle  is  over,  any  prisoners  that  are 
made  are  not  kept :  it  is  preferred  to  make  an  end  of  them.  Here  are  some  more 
terrible  admissions  from  Greek  letters.  "Out  of  the  twelve  hundred  prisoners 
made  at  Nigrita,  only  forty-one  are  left  in  the  prison."  *  *  *  "We  took 
fifty  (Bulgarian  comitadjis)  whom  we  divided  among  us.  For  my  part  I  had 
six  and  I  did  'clean  them  up.'  I  was  given  sixteen  prisoners  to  return  to  the 
division,  but  I  only  brought  two  back.  The  others  were  eaten  in  the  darkness, 
massacred  by  me."  We  can  not  quote  any  admission  on  the  part  of  the  other 
belligerents  equal  to  these.  But,  acts  of  this  sort,  fewer  in  number  perhaps,  must 


1See  for  previous  changes  Armand  du  Payrat:   The  Prisoner  of  War  in  Continental 
Warfare.     Paris,  A.  Rousseau,  1910,  pp.  133-135. 


216  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

be  imputed  to  all.     The  following  is  a  Servian  story  published  by  the  Servian 
Socialist  paper  Radnitchke  N ovine  (No.  162,  August  12/25) : 

We  imprisoned  300  Bulgarian  soldiers.  We  were  ordered  to  put  up  a 
machine  gun  in  a  valley.  I  guessed  the  object  of  these  preparations.  The 
Bulgarian  prisoners  watched  us  at  work  and  seemed  to  guess  what  was 
awaiting  them.  We  put  them  in  a  line:  then  our  machine  began  to  work 
along  it  from  one  end  to  another.  *  *  *  When  we  buried  them  we  found 
in  the  pocket  of  a  non-commissioned  officer  Le  Messager  Ouvrier  and  a 
detailed  journal  of  the  war.  Probably  he  was  a  socialist  democrat. 

Assassination  of  prisoners  on  the  march  is  also  found  among  the  Bul- 
garians. But  the  motives  are  different.  Those  who  can  not  march  or  who  tried 
to  escape  are  killed  (contrary  to  the  provisions  of  Article  6  of  the  Convention, 
which  imposes  "disciplinary  penalties").  The  mass  massacre  of  Turkish 
prisoners  by  the  Bulgarians  at  Stara  Zagora  is  explained  (but  naturally  not 
justified)  by  a  panic  produced  by  rumors  announcing  the  arrival  of  the  Turkish 
army. 

A  Turkish  prisoner  at  Sofia,  Mr.  Haki-Kiamil,  of  the  fifth  regiment  of 
sharpshooters,  told  us  of  an  episode  whose  detestable  character  admits  of  no 
doubt,  although  here  again  it  was  a  question  of  panic.  He  gave  himself  up  to 
the  Bulgarians  in  the  neighborhood  of  Adrianople.  Soon  afterwards  a  panic 
arose  and  the  Bulgarian  officers  ordered  all  prisoners  to  be  killed.  They  were 
put  at  the  bottom  of  a  wall  and  all  shot.  He  himself  received  eleven  wounds 
but  was  saved  by  the  ambulance.  Captain  Noureddine  and  Lieutenant  Nadji 
were  also  killed  at  Adrianople  on  the  day  of  the  capture  of  the  town,  after  having 
given  themselves  up.  They  were  escorted  by  non-commissioned  officers.  The 
soldiers  said  to  them,  "You  have  done  us  a  lot  of  harm  with  your  machine  guns ; 
now  you  are  going  to  pay  for  it."  And  they  began  to  kill  the  prisoners — twenty 
soldiers  and  two  officers.  Before  the  end  of  the  slaughter,  a  Bulgarian  officer 
arrived  and  saved  the  life  of  the  witness,  of  one  Medmed  Begtchete,  and  another 
soldier.  The  third  prisoner  told  us  that  a  body  of  157  prisoners  was  taken  from 
Erikler.  The  soldiers  beat  these  prisoners  and  pushed  them  with  their  sticks. 
Three  prisoners  wounded  in  the  feet  could  not  march  fast  enough;  they  were 
bayoneted. 

The  few  among  the  wounded  who  did  not  die  under  such  horrible  treatment 
were,  once  they  reached  the  hospital,  on  the  whole  well  treated  by  the  sanitary 
staff.  It  is  true  that  sick  enemy  soldiers  occupying  the  same  room  often  behaved 
in  a  most  unworthy  manner  towards  them,  especially  in  the  earlier  days.  Later, 
an  improvement  almost  always  took  place;  thanks  to  the  hospital  staff  (mostly 
foreigners),  the  rights  of  humanity  were  restored.  The  members  of  the  Commis- 
sion found  this  to  be  the  case  wherever  they  have  happened  to  visit  the  hospital. 

As  regards  the  next  stage,  the  treatment  of  healthy  prisoners  incarcerated  in 
various  spots,  the  divergence  from  the  prescriptions  of  the  Convention,  was  not 


THE   WAR   AND   INTERNATIONAL   LAW 


217 


FIG.  23. — A  BULGARIAN  RED  CROSS   CONVOY 


pIGi  24. — ROUMANIAN  RAVAGES  AT  PETROHAN 


218  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

wide  in  Bulgaria  or  in  Servia.  Generally  speaking,  despite  mutual  recrimina- 
tions in  the  press,  prisoners  did  not  suffer  severely  either  at  Sofia  or  at  Belgrade. 
A  Bulgarian  officer,  Mr.  Kissditzy,  told  us  at  Sofia  that  the  quarters  for  officers 
and  particularly  for  soldiers  were  bad  at  Belgrade;  for  example,  there  were  as 
many  as  a  hundred  persons  in  a  room  which  only  held  thirty.  The  medical 
treatment  was  insufficient;  the  Servian  doctor,  our  friend,  Mr.  Vasits,  came 
rarely.  The  other  doctor,  a  Greek  from  Gumurjina  teased  the  prisoners  so 
that  they  themselves  asked  not  to  be  attended  by  him.  The  Turkish  prisoners 
we  saw  at  Sofia  looked  tolerably  well,  but  they  complained  of  the  bad  quality 
of  the  food.  The  Greek  prisoners  did  not  criticize  the  food,  which  they  said 
was  mediocre.  A  Servian  prisoner  in  flight  from  Bulgaria,  a  farmer,  said :  "There 
was  enough  bread;  they  (the  Bulgars)  gave  us  what  they  had  themselves."  As 
to  prisoners'  worlc  (allowed  by  the  Convention)  the  Bulgarian  government  states 
that  those  employed  on  State  works  were  remunerated  at  the  same  rate  as  the 
Bulgarian  soldiers,  that  is  to  say,  they  got  no  money  but  were  lodged,  fed  and 
clothed.  Those  working  in  connection  with  private  enterprise,  "ought"  to  receive 
a  stated  daily  wage.  The  Minister  admits  that  malversion  was  possible,  but 
knows  no  case  of  it.  The  Turkish  soldiers  explained  to  the  Commission  that 
they  were  forced  to  work  on  the  fortifications  against  Knjazevac  (contrary  to 
the  Convention)  and  that  they  received  no  pay. 

All  this,  however,  is  nothing  in  comparison  with  what  the  prisoners  of  war 
endured  in  Greece.  Contrary  to  the  Convention  they  were  shut  up  in  prisons, 
not  temporarily  but  permanently.  These  Greek  prisons  ("the  Bastilles  of  the 
twentieth  century"  as  the  Patris  called  that  at  Athens,  May  29)  were  hor- 
rible. Bulgarian  prisoners  returning  in  October  from  Priekes,  from  Ithaca, 
and  from  Nauplion,  told  appalling  stories.  We  select  one  which  is  very  well 
substantiated  as  a  specimen.1  The  author,  Mr.  Lazarov,  was  captured  on  board 
the  steamer  Catherine,  on  which  the  horrible  scenes  of  drowning  which  are 
described  in  Chapter  IV  took  place. 

On  June  24/July  7,  we  arrived  at  the  Island  of  Ithaca.  The  soldiers 
were  the  first  to  disembark.  They  were  all  searched  and  shut  up  in  the 
prison.  Then  the  civil  prisoners  were  taken  off  and  beaten  one  after 
the  other,  before  being  shut  up.  We  heard  agonizing  sobs  from  children 
and  old  people  of  seventy.  The  prison  is  constructed  in  the  middle  of  the 
sea,2  on  a  plateau  of  3,100  m.  c.  of  which  2,000  are  occupied  by  the 
building.  The  prison  is  damp  and  gloomy.  There  we  spent  a  month  locked 
up,  during  which  time  we  only  had  three  hours  a  day  to  breathe  the  open 


xMr.  Lazarov's-story  was  published  by  the  Mir,  October  24/November  6. 

2In  the  official  Greek  denials  a  great  deal  of  fuss  is  made  because  the  stories  of  the 
Bulgarian  prisoners  allude  to  the  "uninhabited  islands"  of  Ithaca  and  Trikeri,  whereas 
Ithaca  is  inhabited  by  20,000  inhabitants,  and  Trikeri  is  not  an  island  but  a  big  town  at 
the  extremity  of  the  Volo  peninsula.  As  regards  Ithaca,  Mr.  Lazarov  replies  that  the 
prison  is  clearly  situated  near  the  channel  of  the  island.  Trikeri  was  taken  by  the 
prisoners  for  an  island,  probably  because  they  could  not  see  behind  the  mountain,  the 
lower  portion  of  which  unites  it  to  the  continent. 


THE   WAR  AND   INTERNATIONAL   LAW  219 

air  in  the  courtyard.  At  the  end  of  the  month  we  were  let  out,  but  for 
this  fifty  centimes  were  taken  from  each  of  us.  Nevertheless  the  civilians 
continued  shut  up  until  October  22/November  4.  The  only  people  who 
saw  the  country  were  those  who  were  led  into  the  town  to  work  as  street 
porters.  Before  going  into  the  prison,  the  223  soldiers  had  taken  from  them 
108  pairs  of  boots,  ten  belts,  a  pair  of  trousers,  eight  razors,  five  watches, 
four  purses,  thirty  francs,  and  a  cross  which  had  been  given  as  a  reward  for 
courage.  We  sent  a  written  protest  to  the  Commander  of  the  Island  of 
Ithaca.  He  returned  it  to  us  saying  that  he  could  do  nothing  since  he 
did  not  know  the  culprits,  although  we  had  named  them  in  our  report. 
From  the  civilians  there  were  taken  fr.  3,882  (a  thousand  francs  being  taken 
from  Nabouliev  alone,  the  man  who  was  drowned),  without  counting  coats 
and  shoes.  Their  protest  was  equally  unavailing.  Although  there  was 
spring  water  in  the  town,  well  water  was  brought  to  us  in  barrels:  it  was 
stony  and  tasted  detestable,  indeed  it  was  hardly  drinkable,  and  we  could 
not  use  it  for  cooking  our  soup  which  consisted  exclusively  of  beans.  We 
were  fed  mainly  on  chick-peas,  lentils,  haricots,  rice,  potatoes,  stinking  and 
rotten  olives,  bad  fish,  poor  cheese  and  raisins.  Out  of  226  dishes  only 
twenty-two  were  meat  dishes.  And  this  meat  was  goat,  which  even  dog3 
will  not  touch  with  us.  For  three  days,  June  18,  24  and  25,  we  had  nq 
food  at  all  and  ten  times  we  were  only  given  one  meal  in  the  twenty-four 
hours.  There  was  absolutely  no  medical  attention.  Men  who  were  griev- 
ously ill  were  left  without  attention.  The  dampest  room  in  the  prison  was 
assigned  for  a  hospital,  and  the  sick  were  left  there  without  medicine,  food 
or  medical  attention,  that  they  might  die,  not  that  they  might  recover. 
We  had,  in  fact,  to  look  after  ourselves.  Those  among  us  who  belonged  to 
the  ambulance  service,  secretly  visited  the  hospital  to  see  the  sick  people  and 
make  out  prescriptions,  which  we  sent  into  the  town  in  wine  bottles.  We 
had  to  pay  ten  times  too  dear  for  our  medicine  and  our  pockets  were 
empty.  Collections  had  to  be  made  to  buy  milk,  eggs,  etc.,  for  the  sick. 
Those  who  had  toothache  had  to  put  up  with  the  services  of  the  town  barber, 
who  made  extractions  at  two  francs  a  tooth.  Our  ambulance  people  had 
even  to  look  after  the  Greek  sanitary  staff,  who  complained  that  their 
doctor  understood  nothing,  and  refused  to  look  after  them;  that  they  could 
not  get  medicine  and  that  the  chemists  would  not  give  the  State  credit. 
Throughout  the  time  of  our  imprisonment  we  had  fifteen  soldiers  sick, 
without  counting  civilians.  The  principal  diseases  were  fever,  diarrhea, 
stomatitis,  angina,  erysipelas,  etc.  A  typhoid  patient  in  a  delirious  state 
came  out  of  his  room,  which  was  two  yards  from  the  sea,  and  drowned 
himself.  I  myself  suffered  from  rheumatism  for  two  months  and  a  half; 
not  only  was  I  never  attended  by  a  doctor,  I  was  not  even  given  a  mattress, 
but  had  to  lie  on  the  damp  boards.  After  enduring  great  sufferings  on 
September  13/26,  we  sent  a  request  to  the  commander  asking  him  to  remove 
us  from  the  damp  prison  and  place  us  in  houses  suitable  for  prisoners  of  war, 
to  treat  us  as  prisoners  of  war  and  not  as  convicts ;  to  give  us  blankets  as  many 
of  us  had  no  cloaks ;  to  allow  us  to  write  to  our  relations,  and  to  go  out  into 
the  town  to  buy  necessaries ;  to  provide  us  with  water  fit  for  washing  instead 
of  dirty  water.  Only  this  last  request  was  granted.  Our  allowances  were 
paid  us  regularly,  one  franc,  fifty  centimes  per  month  for  a  soldier,  three 
francs  for  a  corporal,  nine  francs  for  a  non-commissioned  officer  of  low  grade, 
fifteen  francs  for  a  higher  grade  non-commissioned  officer  and  for  a  sergeant 


220  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

major.  Two  days  after  our  departure  we  were  asked  to  sign  a  declaration 
in  Greek  to  the  effect  that  we  had  been  well  treated,  and  took  away  with 
us  all  that  we  had  brought.  Not  to  sign  was  impossible.  We  signed  ma- 
king, however,  a  reservation  by  adding  two  letters  upon  which  we  had 
agreed:  O.  M.,  private  opinion,  which  they  did  not  see  (ossobaye  mneniye}. 

The  captive  officers  were  no  better  treated,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  story 
of  Major  Lazarov,  commander  of  the  Bulgarian  garrison  at  Salonica.  Mr. 
Lazarov  describes  their  sufferings  on  the  steamer,  their  four  days  stay  at 
Piraeus,  in  a  damp  and  dirty  prison,  where  they  slept  on  boards  in  an  unwholesome 
atmosphere,  were  ill  fed,  not  allowed  to  go  out  except  to  be  photographed,  and 
then  were  exposed  to  the  insolence  of  the  crowd  and  the  curiosity  of  journalists. 
After  their  departure,  these  journalists  stated  in  the  press  that  the  Bulgarian 
officers  had  been  received  in  the  best  families,  had  mixed  in  high  society,  visited 
theatres  and  cinemas,  but  that  since  they  had  abused  their  hospitality  they  had 
finally  been  sent  to  Nauplia,  because  one  young  officer  had  been  incorrect  in 
his  behavior  to  some  ladies  of  the  high  society  of  Piraeus.  Mr.  Lazarov,  after 
his  return  to  Bulgaria,  sent  the  following  telegram  to  Mr.  Venizelos : — 

The  captive  Bulgarian  officers  of  the  Salonica  garrison  protest  energeti- 
cally against  the  way  in  which  they  were  treated  during  their  captivity  in 
Greece.  They  were  robbed  of  their  baggage  and  most  of  them  of  their 
money,  thrown  into  a  medieval  prison,  where  they  were  buried  alive  in  a 
dungeon  in  the  fortress  of  Nauplia,  deprived  of  air  and  light,  deprived 
also  of  any  communication  with  their  families.  The  doctors  not  excepted, 
they  endured  every  humiliation  and  every  form  of  suffering  that  the  most 
refined  cruelty  could  invent. 

Here  we  do  not  speak  of  the  "civilians,"  although  their  sufferings,  especially 
in  the  dungeons  in  Salonica,  were  even  greater.  In  their  case  the  point  of  view 
taken  was  that  they  were  rebel  Greek  subjects.  It  may  be  noted  that  generally 
speaking  the  term,  "prisoner  of  war,"  was  interpreted  too  widely  in  the  Balkans. 
At  Sofia,  the  Commission  was  greatly  astonished  to  see  old  men  of  eighty  years 
and  children  pass  before  it  in  the  guise  of  "prisoners"  returned  from  Servia. 
We  questioned  these  good  people,  who  were  dressed  as  peasants,  and  dis- 
covered that  they  belonged  to  the  population  of  villages  in  remote  regions,  and 
had  endured  a  form  of  temporary  servitude  in  the  middle  of  the  twentieth 
century.  The  1907  Convention  demands  that  there  should  be  "a  fixed  distinc- 
tive mark  recognizable  at  a  distance,"  to  show  who  is  "belligerent."  At  a 
distance  it  is  easy  to  see  the  age  of  these  old  people  and  to  see  therefore 
that  they  could  not  be  called  "prisoners  of  war."  (The  photographs  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Commission  of  a  "review  of  prisoners"  at  Sofia,  prove  clearly  enough 
that  one  could  see  from  a  long  way  off  the  sort  of  people  with  whom  one  had  to 
deal.) 

By  Article  23  of  the  1907  Convention,  "It  is  forbidden  *  *  *  to  use 
arms,  projectiles  or  other  material  likely  to  cause  needless  suffering." 


THE   WAR   AND   INTERNATIONAL   LAW  221 

With  regard  to  the  "needless  suffering,"  we  already  know  that  there  were 
a  thousand  ways  of  causing  it.  The  fundamental  principle  of  the  introduc- 
tory Article  (22)  of  the  chapter  on  the  "methods  of  injuring"  was  interpreted 
in  the  Balkans  in  an  inverse  sense,  and  the  maxim  there  employed  ran — "Bel- 
ligerents have  an  unbounded  liberty  of  choice  of  means  of  injuring  the  enemy." 
As  regards  forbidden  arms  and  projectiles,  the  rules  of  the  Convention  remained 
a  dead  letter.  It  is  known  that  during  the  first  Balkan  war  expanding  or 
"dum-dum"  bullets  were  used  by  the  Turkish  soldiers.  It  will  be  seen  that  the 
same  projectiles  were  used  by  Christian  soldiers. 

As  regards  the  Bulgarian  army,  the  Commission  is  in  possession  of  official 
Servian  reports  to  the  general  staff  of  Uskub,  from  Tsrny  Vrah  on  July  13,  and 
from  Bela-Voda  on  July  21,  22.  General  Boyovits  wrote  from  Tsrny  Vrah 
(No.  2446)  that  "the  enemy  is  using  'dum-dum'  bullets,  a  fact  confirmed  by  the 
doctor."  Eight  days  later,  Colonel  Marinkovits  (Choumadia  division,  second 
reserve,  No.  2070)  sends  specimens  of  these  bullets  and  of  dynamite  projectiles  to 
the  general  staff,  with  some  observations  communicated  to  him  by  the  commander 
of  the  Tenth  Regiment,  Second  Reserve.  The  commander's  remarks  are  as 
follows : 

During  the  fighting  with  the  Bulgars  it  was  observed  that  in  each  combat 
they  employed  a  quantity  of  "dum-dum"  bullets.  Herewith  are  sent  five 
bullets  and  a  portion  of  one.  In  addition,  it  was  noticed  that  they  used 
ammunition  with  dynamitic  contents ;  this  was  specially  remarked  during  the 
engagement  at  Bosil-Grad,  where  the  majority  of  the  wounded,  even  though 
slightly  wounded,  died  very  soon.  As  an  example,  there  may  be  cited 
Milovan  Milovanovits,  fourth  company,  third  battalion  of  this  regiment,  who 
comes  from  Bresnitsa,  district  of  Liubits,  department  of  Rudnik.  He  was 
wounded  in  the  leg  and  although  immediately  attended  by  the  army  doctor, 
he  died  within  an  hour.  I  shall  receive  accounts  of  the  use  of  these  bullets 
from  the  commanders  of  the  Tenth  Regiment,  first  reserve  and  the  third 
surplus  regiment,  first  reserve.  I  know  of  a  case  in  the  Tenth  Regiment, 
first  reserve,  where  a  sergeant  was  wounded  by  a  bullet  of  this  kind  and 
had  his  whole  face  destroyed. 

The  testimony  of  the  doctor  was  sent  by  Colonel  Marinkovits  on  the  same 
day,  July  21  (No.  2079),  to  the  general  staff:  "In  connection  with  the  report, 
No.  2070,  today's  date,  I  beg  to  submit  the  report  of  the  .commander  of  the 
Third  (Auxiliary)  Regiment,  first  reserve.  On  perceiving  in  the  course  of  the 
engagement  with  the  Bulgars  on  July  15  and  17,  that  the  enemy's  bullets  had  a 
totally  different  effect  from  hitherto,  I  consulted  the  army  doctor,  whose  state- 
ment is  as  follows: 

a  c.-j;'-^ 

I  have  not  much  experience  of  dum-dum  bullets,  but  according  to  the 
accounts  of  the  wounded  and  of  all  the  participators  in  the  combats  of 
Preslata,  with  the  Albanians,  I  beg  to  state  my  opinion  to  the  commanders 


222  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

that  the  Bulgars  have  a  certain  amount  of  these  bullets  at  hand,  and  espe- 
cially used  them  at  night.  The  action  of  these  bullets  consists  in  their 
expansion  when  striking  a  body;  thus  the  wounds  are  deformed  and  heal 
with  greater  difficulty.  I  beg  that  this  be  verified  on  the  patients,  and  that 
attention  be  drawn  to  the  fact  in  appropriate  quarters." 

On  the  following  day,  July  22  (No.  2085),  the  statement  of  the  army  doctor, 
Mr.  Mihilovits,  was  sent  to  the  general  staff.  It  was  countersigned  by  Colonel 
Marinkovits : 

In  connection  with  the  reports,  2070  and  2079  of  yesterday's  date.  I 
have  the  honor  to  send  you  the  following  report  of  the  army  doctor  of  the 
Tenth  Regiment,  first  reserve. 

In  reply  to  the  commander's  question  whether  the  Bulgars  employed  dum- 
dum bullets,  or  bullets  of  a  dynamitic  nature,  in  the  combats  along  the  Vlasina 
frontier,  the  doctor  made  the  following  statement: 

I  beg  to  state  that  I  found  eight  cases  among  the  wounded  of  our  first 
battalion,  who  fell  in  the  combat  of  the  7th  inst.,  where  the  injuries  had 
been  caused  by  firearms  of  small  caliber.  In  each  case  the  flesh  looked  as 
though  it  had  been  dragged  and  torn  with  a  pair  of  tweezers.  There  were 
two  openings  in  each  case,  where  the  bullet  had  penetrated  and  emerged, 
i.  e.,  it  passed  right  through.  These  holes  were  both  disproportionately 
large.  One  of  these  eight  cases  of  injuries  caused  by  dum-dum  bullets  is 
very  characteristic,  namely,  that  of  Sergeant  Krasits,  of  the  first  battalion. 
He  has  the  right  side  of  his  upper  lip  cut  and  the  whole  of  his  face  and 
throat  are  covered  with  burns  about  the  size  of  a  five  para  piece  [this  is 
about  the  size  of  an  English  penny].  Sergeant  Krasits  was  brought  to  the 
hospital  three  hours  after  he  had  been  wounded.  His  head  was  much 
swollen,  especially  his  face  and  eyes.  His  lids  were  swollen  to  such  an 
extent  that  he  could  not  see.  His  eyeballs  were  uninjured.  In  my  opinion. 
Sergeant  Krasits's  injuries  were  caused  by  a  rifle  bullet  of  dynamitical  or 
other  explosive  contents.  It  is  quite  obvious  in  his  case.  In  several  other 
cases  of  injury,  it  may  be  stated  with  certainty  that  they  were  caused  by 
dum-dum  bullets.  Many  of  the  wounded  whom  I  attended  that  day  told 
me  that  the  Bulgarian  bullets  explode  a  second  time  when  they  enter  the 
body. 

As  for  the  Greek  army,  the  Commission  received  a  proces-verbal  signed  on 
July  21/August  3,  at  Sofia,  by  Dr.  Toramiti  (head  of  the  Austrian  Red  Cross 
mission),  Dr.  Kohl  (head  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth  of  Reuss'  mission),  and  Dr. 
Mihilowsky  (head  of  the  Clementina  hospital  at  Sofia).  On  the  request  of 
General  Savov,  these  officers  formed  a  special  commission  to  determine  whether 
or  no  dum-dum  bullets  had  been  used  in  the  Servian  army.  Their  conclusions 
are  as  follows: 


THE   WAR   AND   INTERNATIONAL   LAW  223 

A  packet  was  put  before  them  composed  of  four  samples,  the  ends  of 
which  had  obviously  been  artificially  filed  with  a  view  to  assisting  the  action 
of  the  bullets,  contrary  to  the  provisions  of  the  Geneva  Convention.  The 
samples  do  not  appear  to  represent  something  specially  manufactured,  but 
rather  something  improvised;  they  are  something  half  way  between  an  ordi- 
nary bullet  and  an  explosive  bullet.  The  wounded  men  examined  by  the 
Commission,  Peter  Khristov,  of  the  sixty-second  infantry  regiment,  and 
Michael  Minovski,  of  the  second  regiment,  showed  more  serious  wounds 
than  are  produced  by  normal  bullets  in  steel  cases,  wounds  that  may  be 
attributed  to  explosive  bullets.  Similar  wounds,  however,  might  be  pro- 
duced by  a  bullet  meeting  a  rigid  object  on  its  way,  and  so  entering  the  body 
out  of  shape. 

The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  verbal  note  sent  by  the  Bulgarian  Minister 
of  Foreign  Affairs  to  the  embassies  of  the  six  great  Powers  at  Sofia,  July  24/ 
August  6  (No.  2492),  on  the  employment  of  the  dum-dum  bullets  by  the  Greek 
army: 

In  the  course  of  recent  actions,  the  Greek  troops  used  bullets  against 
the  Bulgarian  soldiers  which  have  the  ends  cut  and  carry  incisions  of  two 
millimeters  in  diameter  and  4-5  millimeters  in  depth,  in  the  middle  of  the 
grooved  portion :  the  ravages  produced  by  these  bullets  in  the  human  body 
are  ten  times  worse  than  those  made  by  ordinary  bullets.  While  the  wounds 
made  by  the  ordinary  Greek  bullet  passing  through  the  human  body  show  a 
diameter  of  6.5  millimeters — equal  to  the  caliber  of  the  Greek  rifle, — those 
produced  by  the  bullets  with  their  ends  cut  are  as  much  as  seven  centimeters 
in  diameter,  that  is  to  say,  the  wounds  are  ten  times  as  bad.  The  doctors 
attached  to  the  army  operating  against  the  Greeks  bear  witness  to  the  exist- 
ence of  hundreds  of  cases  of  this  kind.  Three  doctors,  two  being  foreigners, 
in  fact  drew  up  a  statement  ad  hoc. 

The  effect  of  bullets  cut  in  this  manner  and  incised  in  the  middle  of 
the  grooved  portion,  may  be  explained  as  follows :  As  a  result  of  its  impact 
on  the  human  body  the  cut  bullet  alters  its  shape  while  continuing  its  move- 
ment, while  the  air  in  the  cavity  formed  in  the  middle  of  the  grooved  por- 
tion is  compressed  and,  tending  to  recover  its  normal  density,  acts  as  an 
explosive,  at  the  moment  of  the  deformation  of  the  bullet  in  the  human  body. 
The  result  is  terrible  wounds. 

The  use  of  bullets  of  this  kind  having  been  prohibited  by  Article  23 
of  the  Regulations  of  the  Laws  and  Customs  of  Land  Warfare,  drawn  up 
by  the  Second  Peace  Conference  at  The  Hague  in  1907,  the  Royal  Ministry 
of  Foreign  Affairs  protests  against  the  infraction  of  this  provision  com- 
mitted by  the  Greek  troops,  and  begs  the  Royal  Imperial  Embassy  of  *  *  * 
to  be  so  good  as  to  bring  the  above  facts  to  the  knowledge  of  their  gov- 
ernment. 

The  military  authorities  are  in  possession  of  three  cartridges  containing 
the  bullets  in  question. 

Photographs  of  these  Greek  cartridges  were  shown  to  the  Commission ;  on 
them  Greek  letters  can  be  seen— HES  1910  and  EFIKEAAA2.  The  filed 


224 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 


FIG.  25. — SHORTENED  GREEK  CARTRIDGES 

ends  can  also  be  seen  very  distinctly.  Before  judging  the  facts  alleged  in  the 
document  cited,  the  reserves  made  by  the  doctors  consulted  at  Sofia  must  be 
remembered.  The  bullets  in  question  are  "improvised,"  and  not  officially  manu- 
factured; moreover,  a  certain  number  of  the  wounds  explained  by  the  action 
of  dum-dum  bullets  are  capable  of  another  explanation.  This  certainly  does 
not  change  the  nature  of  the  offence,  but  it  may  change  its  degree,  and  leave  in 
suspense  the  question  of  guilt.  The  governments  concerned  ought  to  make  it 
their  interest  to  make  inquiry  among  themselves  with  a  view  to  discovering  the 
explanation  of  the  facts  established,  instead  of  merely  denying  them,  which  would 
lead  to  a  suspicion  of  their  guilt. 


4.    Article  23  f. 

The  undue  use  of  the  white  flag  is  forbidden. 

Article  32.  It  (the  white  flag)  enjoys  inviolability,  as  do  the  trumpet,  the  bugle  and  the 
drum,  the  standard  bearer  and  the  interpreter  who  accompany  it.  A  captain  to  whom  a 
white  flag  is  sent  is  not  compelled  to  receive  it  in  all  circumstances.  He  may  take  all 
the  necessary  steps  to  prevent  the  white  flag  from  taking  advantage  of  the  opportunity 
to  reconnoitre.  In  case  of  abuse  he  has  the  right  to  retain  the  white  flag  temporarily. 

Generally  speaking  proper  respect  for  the  white  flag  was  lacking  in  the 
atmosphere  of  mutual  distrust,  a  distrust  perhaps  justified  in  part  by  the  con- 


THE   WAR  AND   INTERNATIONAL   LAW  225 

tempt  for  moral  obligations  and  formal  rights  to  which  this  report  bears  witness. 
The  parties  accused  each  other  mutually  of  attempts  at  "undue  use."  This, 
however,  can  not  justify  the  direct  attacks  on  bearers  of  the  white  flag,  which 
indubitably  took  place.  A  telegram  from  Uskub,  published  in  the  Servian  press,1 
records  the  following  fact.  The  commander  of  the  Servian  troops  besieging 
Vidine  at  11:30  in  the  morning  of  July  18/31,  sent  an  officer  and  three  horse- 
men to  inform  the  commander  of  the  garrison  at  Vidine  of  the  conclusion  of 
an  armistice,  and  to  begin  pourparlers  on  a  line  of  demarcation.  The  bearer  of 
the  flag  of  truce  was  on  the  road,  the  trumpet  was  played  and  a  soldier  carried 
the  white  flag.  When  the  flag  was  thirty  paces  from  the  village  of  Novo 
Seltsi,  the  Bulgarians  opened  fire.  The  envoy  was  not  wounded,  but  his  two 
companions  were  hit.  The  telegram  does  not  state  what  followed,  but  the, 
Bulgarians  evidently  ceased  to  fire  and  the  bearer  of  the  flag  of  truce  completed 
his  task. 

The  Servians  were  guilty  of  even  more  serious  violation  of  the  Conventions 
regulating  the  use  of  the  flag  of  truce.  On  June  18/July  1,  an  order  was  given 
to  the  Bulgarian  army  to  cease  the  offensive.  For  forty  minutes  the  Bulgarians 
ceased  and  some  officers  were  sent  as  bearers  of  the  flag  of  truce.  This,  as  we 
know,  was  the  last  opportunity  on  which  it  was  still  possible  to  avoid  war, 
since  the  government  at  Sofia  had  disavowed  the  orders  given  by  General 
Savov,  and  he  had  been  obliged  to  beat  a  retreat.  We  possess  the  stories  of 
those  who  bore  the  flag  of  truce,  which  show  the  reception  given  by  the 
Servians  to  this  attempt  to  stop  the  hostilities  which  had  hardly  begun.  Lieuten- 
ant Bochkov  was  arrested;  his  eyes  were  bandaged,  and  he  was  led  first  before 
the  commander  of  the  regiment,  and  then  before  the  commander  of  a  division. 
Contrary  to  the  Convention,  he  was  told  that  he  was  taken  prisoner.  He  refused 
to  remove  his  bandage  himself,  and  was  thereupon  told  that  he  was  regarded 
as  a  spy.  The  affair  was  reported  to  Prince  Alexander,  the  heir  to  the  throne, 
who  replied  that  he  refused  to  negotiate  with  the  Bulgarians,  or  to  receive  envoys 
from  them.  Here  he  was,  of  course,  within  his  rights,  but  he  had  transgressed 
them  for  the  two  following  reasons,  in  declaring  the  man  Bochkov  prisoner: 
(1)  the  Bulgarians  had  not  declared  war;  (2)  he  had  not  got  full  power. 
Nevertheless,  Mr.  Bochkov  had  been  sent  with  a  flag  of  truce  by  the  com- 
mander; and  when  the  heir-apparent  accused  him  of  being  a  spy,  he  replied 
that  it  was  not  usual  for  spies  to  appear  with  their  eyes  bandaged.  Alexander's 
sole  reply  was  to  push  him  brutally  with  his  hand.  His  photograph  was  taken 
and  published  in  the  Servian  papers  as  that  of  a  Bulgarian  spy.  With  his 
own  eyes  he  saw  a  Bulgarian  peasant  shot  by  the  order  of  the  heir  to  the 
throne,  who  accused  him  of  being  a  spy.  He  himself  was  led  off  on  foot  behind 
a  horseman  who  was  charged  to  take  him  to  Uskub;  he  had  to  sleep  on  the 
street  while  his  escort  lay  under  a  roof.  Throughout  the  journey  to  Belgrade, 


JSee  the  Odyeke  of  July  22/August  4. 


226  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

he  was  insulted  and  mocked  at.  Another  bearer  of  a  flag  of  truce,  Reserve 
Lieutenant  Kiselitsky — of  whose  imprisonment  we  have  already  spoken, — reports 
the  same  fact.  "We  had  two  white  flags  (with  Mr.  Bochkov).  The  Servians 
took  us  prisoners  and  again  began  firing  on  our  lines."  Mr.  Kiselitsky  saw 
a  Bulgarian  soldier  thrown  out  of  his  litter  to  make  room  for  a  Servian  soldier, 
on  the  order  of  the  heir  to  the  throne.  He  saw  Bulgarian  prisoners  being 
pillaged  all  along  the  way.  He  himself  was  insulted  and  made  the  mark  of 
dubious  jokes.  The  Commission  heard  a  third  witness,  Mr.  Maguenev,  an 
officer  of  the  31st  Regiment  of  Reserve.  He  was  one  of  the  bearers  of  a  flag 
of  truce,  who  was  asked  to  give  his  full  authority.  He  replied  that  he  was 
ordered  not  to  enter  upon  pourparlers,  but  to  inform  the  Servians  that  the 
Bulgarians  had  received  orders  to  stop  firing.  The  Servian  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Solovits  then  took  his  revolver,  cartridges,  etc.,  but  stopped  when  Mr.  Maguenev 
said  that  if  he  did  so  he  would  blow  his  brains  out.  He  was  then  sent  to  the 
general  staff  and  the  firing  began  again.  They  tried  to  pass  him  off  as  a 
comitadji.  The  prefect  of  Niche  swore  that  he  knew  him,  that  he  was  one 
Stephen  Yovanovits,  born  at  Veles.  Although  this  attempt  failed,  the  Servian 
policeman  who  took  him  to  Belgrade  shouted  to  the  crowd  which  assembled 
at  every  stop :  "Behold  the  Bulgarian  spy."  He  was  insulted  like  the  others. 

An  even  more  serious  case  is  that  of  Captain  Minkov,  of  the  general  staff, 
who  was  also  sent  to  the  Servians  as  the  bearer  of  a  flag  of  truce.  When 
he  reached  the  Servian  line,  Minkov  asked  to  be  led  before  the  commander.  The 
commander,  an  old  man,  interrupted  him  and  without  leaving  him  time  to  explain 
himself  said,  "We  are  no  longer  in  1885.  You  may  have  an  order  to  stop 
hostilities  but  we  have  an  order  to  go  straight  on  to  Kotchani."  With  these 
words,  he  struck  Mr.  Minkov  with  his  riding  whip,  and  said,  "You  are  my 
prisoner."  Four  soldiers  siezed  Mr.  Minkov,  and  as  they  moved  the  commander 
shouted  the  order  again.  The  witness  of  this  scene,  Petko  Ivanov,  a  Bulgarian 
non-commissioned  officer,  who  accompanied  the  captain  and  told  us  the  story, 
could  not  understand  the  words  spoken  at  this  point,  but  he  gathered  their 
general  sense,  the  more  that  at  that  moment  the  soldiers  fired  and  he  saw 
Captain  Minkov  fall.  He  saw  the  captain  stretched  on  the  ground,  struggling 
for  a  few  minutes  in  convulsive  agony ;  then  he  was  led  off  himself.  The  tragedy 
of  this  scene  was  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  at  the  moment  of  its  occurrence 
the  Bulgarian  army  had  received  the  order  to  cease  the  offensive. 

5.  Article  27.  During  sieges  and  bombardments,  all  necessary  measures  shall  be  taken 
to  spare  as  far  as  possible  sacred  edifices,  hospitals  and  places  in  which  sick  and  wounded 
persons  are  collected,  so  long  as  they  are  not  at  the  same  time  being  employed  for  directly 
military  purposes.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  besieged  to  indicate  such  edifices  and  places  by 
special  visible  marks,  to  be  notifed  in  advance,  to  the  besieger. 

Article  21.  The  obligations  of  belligerents  as  regards  the  service  of  the  sick  and 
wounded  are  regulated  by  the  Convention  of  Geneva. 


THE   WAR   AND   INTERNATIONAL    LAW  227 

We  have  here  two  of  the  Articles  in  the  legislation  agreed  upon  between 
belligerent  nations  with  which  compliance  was  clearly  very  easy,  and  most  im- 
portant for  the  belligerents  themselves.  Nevertheless,  even  this  Article  was 
violated.  The  places  and  circumstances  are  precisely  indicated  in  a  report  by  a 
Russian  doctor  at  the  Bulgarian  hospital  at  Serres,  Mr.  P.  G.  Laznev.1  Mr. 
Laznev  took  over  the  direction  of  the  hospital  after  the  departure  of  the 
Bulgarian  troops  on  June  23/July  6.  Side  by  side  with  the  Red  Cross  flag 
which  already  floated  there,  he  caused  the  Russian  national  flag  to  be  hoisted. 
Mr.  Laznev's  story  is  as  follows: — 

On  the  next  and  following  days,  the  members  of  the  Greek  revolution- 
ary committee  repeatedly  presented  themselves.  They  took  away  arms 
belonging  to  the  sick,  which  had  been  placed  in  the  cellars  of  the  hospital. 
They  did  not  indulge  in  any  other  acts  of  violence ;  on  the  contrary,  they 
offered  their  services.  The  women  of  the  town  stole  some  of  the  goods 
belonging  to  the  cholera  patients.  After  the  arrival  of  the  Greek  troops, 
as  before,  Apostol,  the  Greek  Bishop  of  the  town  of  Serres,  was  at  the  head 
of  the  municipal  administration.  He  told  us  that  the  stolen  goods  would 
be  restored  to  the  soldiers,  and  the  women  thieves  executed;  their  names 
were  known.  The  stolen  goods  were  not  restored,  and  not  one  of  the 
thieves  was  punished. 

On  June  28,  the  Bulgarian  infantry  and  mountain  artillery  appeared  on 
the  heights  above  the  hospital.  A  combat  took  place  between  the  Bulgarians 
and  the  Comites  who  were  hidden  behind  the  hospital.  The  Comites  were 
compelled  to  retire,  and  the  Bulgarians  were  in  possession  of  the  hospital. 
This,  however,  lasted  but  for  half  an  hour,  since  more  powerful  detachments 
of  Greek  infantry  and  cavalry  came  up.  An  uninterrupted  fusillade  and 
cannonade  took  place  between  the  enemies  and  lasted  from  three  to  six 
o'clock  in  the  evening.  As  before,  the  hospital  was  the  center  of  the  fray, 
since  it  served  to  cover  the  Greeks,  as  it  had  but  now  covered  the  Bulgarians. 
Many  windows  in  our  hospital  were  broken  and  we  were  obliged  to  place 
the  sick  on  the  ground  near  the  wall,  to  protect  them  against  stray  bullets ; 
as  it  was,  one  of  our  patients  was  wounded  in  the  ear  by  a  ricochetting 
bullet.  I  tried  in  vain  to  show  the  Greeks,  as  before  the  Bulgarians,  that  the 
hospital  should  not  be  chosen  to  cover  the  enemy's  troops.  They  would 
not  listen. 

Evidently  the  inviolability  of  the  hospital  was  abused  by  both  sides,  with 
the  effect  that  the  sole  condition  under  which  the  hospital  was  inviolable,  was 
annulled.  No  account  at  all,  in  fact,  was  taken  of  war  legislation.  The  combat 
over,  violence  followed.  Let  us  quote  further  from  Mr.  Laznev: 

The  victors  then  arrived  worn  out  and  exasperated  by  the  battle.  They 
could  not  be  said  to  enter;  they  forced  the  doors  of  the  hospital.  They 
then  threw  themselves  on  the  soldier  belonging  to  the  ambulance  service 
who  barred  the  way ;  he  was  clad  in  his  white  hospital  apron  and  carried  the 


1Dr.  Laznev's  report  is  published  by  Professor  Miletits  in  his  collection  "Documents, 
etc.,"  pages  107-140.   The  passages  quoted  are  taken  from  a  copy  of  it  in  our  possession. 


228  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

red  cross  on  his  left  arm.  This  did  him  no  good  for  he  was  cruelly  beaten. 
They  then  forced  the  doors  of  the  rooms  reserved  for  the  wounded,  their 
rifles  in  their  hands.  They  threatened  them  all  with  death,  because  "the 
Bulgarians  had  burnt  the  towns."1  I  and  my  assistant,  Kamarov,  tried  to  de- 
fend the  wounded  to  the  best  of  our  power,  by  means  of  course  of  persuasion, 
not  of  arms.  Kamarov  received  several  blows  on  the  chest  and  the  shoulders 
from  the  butt  ends  of  muskets.  The  nozzles  of  the  muskets  were  turned 
towards  me.  Raising  my  voice,  I  told  them,  through  my  interpreter,  that  I 
was  neither  a  Bulgarian  nor  a  Greek,  and  that  they  had  no  sort  of  right 
to  do  any  acts  of  violence  where  the  red  flag  and  the  Russian  flag  were 
floating.  I  succeeded  in  persuading  them,  and  they  went  off.  The  patients 
got  off  with  a  serious  fright.  At  this  moment,  I  heard  a  noise  in  the  upper 
story  in  which  were  the  kitchen,  the  dining  room  and  my  room.  I  went  up 
to  see  what  was  going  on.  I  found  some  Greek  soldiers  busy  pillaging, 
under  pretext  of  searching  for  arms.  Each  was  taking  what  he  could  lay 
his  hands  on,  glasses,  towels,  sugar — nothing  escaped.  I  found  my  room 
in  a  state  of  frightful  disorder.  Some  dozen  soldiers  were  busy,  forcing  the 
locks  of  my  boxes  and  trunks,  and  rifling  them.  All  the  things  had  been 
thrown  out  and  were  lying  about  everywhere.  Efach  was  taking  what  pleased 
him — cigarettes,  tobacco,  sugar,  my  watch  and  chain,  my  linen,  my  pocket 
book,  my  pencils — nothing  was  beneath  their  notice.  I  was  very  much 
afraid,  because  in  my  hand  bag  there  was  both  my  money  and  that  of  the 
hospital;  luckily,  however,  the  Greeks  did  not  see  it.  An  officer  appeared 
and  seeing  the  Russian  national  flag  and  that  of  the  red  cross  affixed  to  the 
balcony,  had  them  torn  down,  despite  our  protestations,  and  hoisted  the  flag 
of  the  Greek  navy.  Until  nightfall  the  Greek  soldiers  went  on  coming  in 
groups,  each  of  which  had  to  be  appealed  to  not  to  maltreat  the  patients. 
This  day,  June  28,  was  the  worst  for  the  Serres  hospital.  From  June  29 
onwards,  they  began  sending  us  Greek  cholera  patients,  and  little  by  little 
looked  upon  us  with  more  favorable  eyes. 

The  Commission  was  informed  of  a  case  in  which  the  sick  found  in  hospitals 
by  the  Greeks  were  even  more  cruelly  treated.  Dr.  Tauk  was  a  Turkish  doctor, 
attached  to  the  hospital  in  the  town  of  Drama.  When  the  Greeks  took  Drama, 
they  found  five  sick  Bulgarian  soldiers  in  the  hospital.  They  ordered  the  doctor 
to  give  them  up.  The  doctor  refused.  The  Greek  authorities  thereupon  had  the 
wounded  taken  out  of  the  hospital,  and  these  five  were  conveyed  to  a  barracks 
outside  the  town.  Our  witness,  whose  name  we  are  not  able  to  give,  states  that 
these  wounded  men  were  massacred. 

At  Vidine,  the  Commission  had  the  opportunity  of  finding  that  the  Servian 
army  could  not  be  altogether  exonerated  from  behavior  of  this  kind.  The  Bulgarian 
hospital  in  this  town  seems  to  have  served  as  a  mark  for  the  Servian  artillery 
during  the  siege.  The  proof  is  a  proces-verbal  signed  by  the  director  of  a  hos- 
pital, by  the  priest  of  Vidine,  Mr.  Nojarov,  by  the  departmental  doctor,  Boyadjiev, 
and  two  other  members  of  the  medical  corps.  The  Commission  visited  the  spot 
and  was  able  to  verify  these  statements  in  the  proces-verbal. 


1For   this    alleged   "fire"   see   the   evidence  of  Dr.  Laznev  himself  and  his  colleague,  Mr. 
Klugmann,  in  Miletits  and  in  our  Chapter  IL 


THE   WAR  AND   INTERNATIONAL   LAW  229 

This  day,  July  17/30,  about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  Servian 
artillery  directed  a  violent  fire  against  the  walls  of  the  Vidine  hospital. 
Round  the  hospital  there  fell  more  than  twenty  shells,  in  the  court  and  in  the 
street.  One  shell  struck  the  infectious  ward,  in  which  wounded  soldiers 
and  other  patients  were  being  treated;  it  destroyed  two  walls  and  exploded 
in  a  room,  wounding  the  patient,  George  Trouika,  from  lassen,  in  the  Vidine 
canton.  The  red  cross  flag  was  hoisted  near  the  demolished  part  of  the 
building.  Another  shell  struck  the  main  ward,  piercing  the  cornice  under 
the  roof  below  the  red  cross  flag  without  exploding.  But  the  fall  of  the 
projectile  created  a  panic  among  the  wounded,  and  even  those  in  a  serious 
condition  and  those  who  had  lost  limbs,  threw  themselves  on  to  the  staircase. 
The  above  mentioned  facts  are  confirmed  by  photographs  taken  by  Mr. 
Kenelrigie,  an  English  engineer,  and  Mrs.  Kenelrigie. 

The  firing  on  the  hospital  by  the  Servians  was  intentional;  they  knew 
that  many  wounded  people  were  being  treated  there.  The  flags  served  as 
targets.  The  hospital  is  situated  outside  the  town,  and  is  visible  from  ten 
miles  off,  especially  from  the  position  occupied  by  the  Servian  artillery. 
Moreover,  two  white  red  cross  flags,  one  two  meters  square,  the  other 
one  meter,  eighty,  were  floating  from  the  walls  of  the  hospital. 

6.  Article  25.  It  is  forbidden  to  attack  or  bombard,  in  any  way  whatsoever,  houses, 
villages,  dwellings  or  buildings  which  are  not  defended. 

Article  28.  It  is  forbidden  to  hand  over  a  town  or  place,  even  when  taken  by  assault, 
to  pillage. 

The  most  important  instance  of  violation  of  Article  28  would,  if  the  accusa- 
tions made  against  the  Bulgarians  were  true,  be  that  of  Adrianople.  But  we  have 
seen  that  the  commander  did  all  that  was  in  his  power  to  put  a  stop  to  pillage 
(begun  by  the  population  itself),  as  soon  as  the  town  was  taken.  This  can  not 
be  stated  with  equal  certainty  as  regards  individual  soldiers,  who  attempted  to 
take  part  in  the  pillage.  Unfortunately,  the  case  was  different  at  Kniajevats, 
where  it  is  evident  that  the  military  authorities  connived  at  pillage,  which  assumed 
extraordinary  proportions.  The  Commission  will  not  refer  to  the  treatment  of 
Salonica  by  the  Greeks,  because  that  episode  belongs  to  a  period  previous  to  the 
Commission's  inquiry,  and  has  not  formed  the  subject  of  any  special  study. 

The  cases  where  villages  were  pillaged  are  so  numerous  that  we  can  not 
go  into  them  at  this  point.  It  may,  however,  be  stated,  that  it  was  almost  normal 
in  the  case  of  certain  localities  referred  to  in  this  report. 

Cases  of  bombardment  of  undefended  places,  in  violation  of  Article  25,  are 
also  known  to  the  Commission.  An  Englishman  named  R.  Wadham  Fisher,  who 
at  first  watched  the  progress  of  the  war  and  afterwards  took  part  in  it  as  a 
lieutenant  in  the  fifth  battalion  of  the  Bulgarian  militia,  stated  to  us  that  the 
Turkish  fleet  had  bombarded  places  situated  on  the  shores  of  the  sea  of  Marmora, 
namely,  the  little  town  of  Char-Keui  (Peristeri),  and  the  village  of  Mireftchi 
(Myriophyto),  although  they  were  not  fortified  and  had  no  artillery.  At  Char- 
Keui,  it  is  true,  there  had  been  some  Bulgarian  militia,  which  was  driven  off  by 
the  Turkish  attack  on  January  26,  1913.  According  to  Mr.  Fisher,  the  Bulgarians 


230  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

left  seventeen  wounded  there.  Three  days  later,  January  29/February  11,  when 
they  returned,  they  found  that  they  had  all  been  killed  by  the  Turks.  "I  saw," 
said  Mr.  Fisher,  "the  dead  body  of  a  child  of  fifteen  years,  stretched  out  on  the 
ground  near  the  fountain  whither  he  had  come  to  draw  water,  with  a  jug  in  his 
hand.  A  girl  of  twelve  years  old,  who  bore  the  marks  of  twelve  bayonet  wounds, 
had  been  outraged  by  four  Turks.  She  soon  died.  Six  old  women  of  about 
seventy-five  years  old  had  also  been  killed.  Two  young  girls,  the  daughters  of 
the  priest,  had  been  carried  off  by  the  Turks  on  their  steamers.  So  much  for 
'pillage.'"  *  *  * 

7.  Let  us  now  to  another  order  of  facts :  the  relations  of  the  conquerors  and 
powers  in  occupation,  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  occupied  territories.  Here  the 
mass  of  facts  is  so  enormous  that  to  recapitulate  them,  after  what  has  already 
been  described,  would  be  superfluous.  We  may,  however,  pause  a  moment  to 
touch  upon  a  class  of  misdemeanors  which  may  be  said  to  have  been  of  daily 
occurrence,  in  order  to  make  the  picture  of  the  violations  of  the  laws  of  warfare 
complete,  and  once  again  confront  the  text  of  the  law  with  the  tragic  reality. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  contributions  and  requisitions  to  which  all  the  inhabit- 
ants were  subjected,  and  which  were  foreseen  and  regulated  by  the  terms  of 
the  Convention  of  1907: 

Article  48.  If  the  power  in  occupation,  within  the  occupied  territory,  raises  taxes, 
duties  and  tolls  for  the  advantage  of  the  State,  it  is  to  do  so  as  far  as  possible  in 
accordance  with  the  scale  and  distribution  in  force  in  the  country.  *  *  * 

Article  49.  If  *  *  *  the  power  in  occupation  raises  other  taxes  in  money  in  the 
occupied  territory,  this  is  only  to  be  done  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  army  or  of  the 
administration  of  the  said  territory. 

Article  51.  Contributions  are  only  to  be  collected  by  the  authority  of  a  written  order 
*  *  *.  A  receipt  shall  be  given  to  the  contributors. 

Article  52.  Payments  in  kind  and  services  requisitioned  *  *  *  shall  be  proportion- 
ate to  the  resources  of  the  country.  As  far  as  possible  they  shall  be  paid  for  in  ready 
money,  if  not,  receipts  shall  be  given. 

The  Commission  has  in  its  possession  a  number  of  proofs  which  show  that 
the  regulations  were  not  carried  out  by  the  Powers  in  occupation,  Servians  and 
Greeks ;  especially  not  by  the  latter.  Among  the  documents  in  the  Commission's 
possession  there  is  occasionally  mention  of  a  number  of  receipts  for  goods  requi- 
sitioned, but  the  documents  are  generally  valueless.  The  Commission  heard  of 
cases  in  which,  instead  of  writing  the  value  of  the  goods  taken  upon  the  receipt, 
oaths  or  jokes  were  written  upon  it;  for  example,  so  much  "rubbish"  was  taken; 
or  there  were  simply  illegible  words.  Corn,  hay  and  cattle,  to  the  value  of 
fr.  30,000,  was  taken  from  an  old  man  of  seventy  years  of  age,  Mitskov  by  name, 
of  Krouchevo,  in  return  for  which  a  receipt  for  fr.  100  was  offered  him.  As  he 
was  courageous  enough  to  protest,  he  was  shut  up  in  the  dampest  cell  of  the 
dungeon  at  Krouchevo.  Next  day  his  son  was  summoned,  compelled  to  accept 
the  hundred  francs  and  sign  the  receipt.  More  often,  however,  no  receipt  was 
given  the  villagers.  Sometimes  some  excuse  was  made,  but  this  was  compara- 


THE   WAR  AND   INTERNATIONAL   LAW  231 

tively  rare.  The  excuse  generally  given  was,  that  "Turkish"  property  was  being 
taken,  not  that  of  the  Slav  inhabitants.  One  particularly  interesting  instance 
may  be  quoted  in  full : 

A  Servian  soldier,  Milan  Michevits,  arrived  in  the  village  of  Barbarevo 
(canton  of  Kratovo),  with  several  men  belonging  to  his  company.  He  made 
requisitions  in  every  house,  and  arrested  a  man  called  Guitcho  Ivanov,  to  compel 
him  to  declare  that  his  corn  is  Turkish  corn.  Another  individual,  Arso  Yanev 
by  name,  is  beaten  and  tortured  during  the  whole  night,  to  compel  him  to  say 
that  his  sheep  are  Turkish  sheep.  With  the  same  object  he  arrested,  beat  and 
tortured  Guiro  Yanev ;  he  beat  Ordane  Petrov  to  make  him  call  his  cow  Turkish 
property;  he  tortured  Mone  Satiovsky,  an  old  man  of  eighty  years  of  age,  by 
stripping  him  to  the  skin  and  making  him  stand  the  whole  night  on  a  hill,  to 
force  him  to  state  that  the  fifteen  goats  taken  from  him  are  Turkish ;  etc. 

We  frequently  find  that  goods  thus  taken  were  sent  to  Servia  or  Greece. 
We  know  of  cases  in  which  Servian  officers  obtained  "subscriptions"  for  the 
red  cross;  and  others  in  which  the  resources  of  the  area  were  absolutely  ex- 
hausted by  the  repeated  levy  of  contributions,  etc.  In  fact,  it  goes  without  saying 
that  where  pillage  is  organized  in  this  way  and  left  thus  unpunished,  no  respect 
for  established  rules  regarding  requisition  and  contribution  can  be  expected. 

8.    Article   47.     Pillage    is    formally    forbidden. 

Article  45.  To  compel  the  population  of  an  occupied  territory  to  take  the  oath  to  the 
enemy  power  is  forbidden. 

Article  46.  Family  honor  and  family  rights,  the  life  of  individuals  and  private  property, 
religious  convictions  and  the  practice  of  worship,  are  to  be  respected. 

The  reader  need  only  recall  Chapters  II  to  IV  of  this  Report,  to  reach  the 
conclusion  that  in  the  Balkan  war  pillage  was  universally  admitted  and  practiced. 
So  far  as  we  know,  the  orders  above,  published  by  the  Bulgarian  military  author- 
ities, represent  the  sole  attempt  made  to  recall  to  the  soldiers  the  opposing 
principle  of  international  law  as  applied  to  warfare.  And  even  this  order  proves 
that  the  principle  was  violated  and  that  subalterns  enjoyed  an  indulgence  which 
encouraged  rather  than  prevented  crime.  Nevertheless  the  operations  of  the 
Bulgarian  army  were  carried  on  in  regions  where  the  mass  of  the  population  was 
composed  of  kinsmen.  The  time  was  insufficient  to  allow  of  "reestablishing  and 
securing  order,"  in  accordance  with  Article  43,  of  the  Convention  of  1907.  The 
forces  "in  occupation"  were  the  Greek  and  Servian  armies ;  it  was  into  their 
hands  that  "the  authority  of  legal  power"  passed  for  the  most  part  in  the  regions 
conquered  from  the  Turks.  We  know  that  their  first  act,  in  their  capacity  as 
"Power  in  occupation"  was,  as  soon  as  the  cession  had  taken  place,  to  compel 
the  population  to  "take  the  oath"  and  to  recognize  themselves  as  Servians  or 
Greeks.  According  to  the  treaties  the  occupied  territory  ought  to  have  been 
regarded  as  possessed  in  "condominium"  by  all  the  allies.  But  we  have  seen 


232  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

that  all  the  relations  between  the  population  and  the  occupying  army  were,  from 
the  very  beginning,  perverted  by  this  tendency  to  appropriate  the  occupied 
territory  and  to  prepare  for  its  annexation;  this  created  a  relation  as  between 
conquerors  and  conquered.  Thus  the  solemn  words  of  Article  46  have  all  the 
effect  of  sarcasm. 

"Family  honor  and  family  rights,  the  life  of  individuals  and  private  prop- 
erty *  *  *  are  to  be  respected."  In  reality,  no  one  is  astonished  by  outrage ; 
they  forget  even  to  look  upon  it  as  a  crime.  In  this  connection,  the  Bulgarians 
are  probably  less  guilty  than  the  others.  More  patriarchal  or  more  primitive 
in  their  ideas,  they  preserve  the  feeling  of  the  soil,  and  are  more  disciplined  than 
the  others.  The  mocking  Greek  women  call  them  "girls  in  great-coats."  This 
certainly  could  not  have  been  said  of  the  Greeks. 

"Individual  life"  was  certainly  rated  cheap  during  these  months  of  war,  and 
"private  property"  at  nothing.  Theft  was  as  common  as  outrage,  and  both 
represented  infringements  of  the  law  of  warfare.  This  was  the  so-called  "peace- 
ful occupation,"  as  carried  on  most  notably  by  the  Roumanian  army.  Some  acts 
of  destruction  carried  out  by  the  Roumanians  at  Petro-hane,  the  highest  point  on 
the  road  between  Sofia  and  Vidine,  are  fresh  in  the  memory  of  the  Commission. 
The  little  villa  in  which  the  late  Prince  of  Battenberg  used  to  spend  the  night 
when  he  came  there  for  hunting,  was  destroyed,  and  the  meteorological  station 
ruined,  the  splendid  instruments  broken  and  the  observation  records,  the  work 
of  many  years,  torn  up  and  burned.  In  comparison  with  this  the  unfortunate 
scientists  of  the  observatory  thought  nothing  of  the  young  women  outraged  in  the 
neighboring  village,  or  the  food  and  cattle  taken  and  not  paid  for;  they  sank 
into  insignificance  in  comparison  with  this  irreparable  loss.  This  was  "peaceful" 
occupation.  Previous  chapters  have  shown  what  occupation  by  force  was  like. 

Was  any  tenderness  shown  for  "religious  convictions"  and  "the  forms  of 
worship"?  Unhappily  not.  We  have  described  the  destruction  of  mosques  and 
churches,  the  ruin  of  sepulchral  monuments,  the  profanation  of  tombs.  One 
party  began :  the  other  came  to  take  revenge ;  it  was  a  form  of  tit  for  tat.  We 
have  verified  and  partly  confirmed  Mr.  Pierre  Loti's  description  of  what  happened 
at  Havsa,  while  drawing  his  attention  to  the  events  of  a  neighboring  Christian 
village.  For  Mr.  Loti's  edification,  another  example  of  Turkish  sacrilege  may 
be  given.  We  read  in  a  Greek  report  of  July  9/22  as  follows : 

Yesterday  about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  sailors  of  the  Turkish 
warship,  which  has  been  anchored  at  Silivri  for  the  last  four  days,  went  to 
the  cemetery  of  the  orthodox  Greek  community  and  overthrew  all  the  crosses 
on  the  graves  there. 

Against  this  there  may  be  set  a  Turkish  complaint,  sent  by  Colonel  Dr. 
Ismail  Mail  to  the  commander  of  the  garrison  at  Stara  Zagora,  where  he  and  a 
great  number  of  Turkish  soldiers  were  held  captive.  "Several  days  ago,"  writes 


THE   WAR  AND  INTERNATIONAL   LAW  233 

Dr.  Ismail  Mail,  on  April  3/16,  "a  captive  soldier  came  here  and  told  us  that 
various  means,  advice,  promises,  threats,  had  been  employed  to  compel  him  and 
his  compatriots,  'Moslem  pomaks,'  to  conversion.  *  *  *  I  replied  by  telling 
the  soldier  not  to  be  worried,  since  such  a  thing  seemed  to  be  impossible.  Today, 
however,  I  learn  that  some  400  prisoners,  all  Moslem  pomaks,  have  been  led  away 
into  an  unknown  place."  *  *  *  Dr.  Ismail  Mail  protests  because  of  the 
risks  of  "contagion."  As  to  the  result  of  his  complaint  we  are  ignorant,  but 
we  have  already  had  occasion  to  say  that  the  Bulgarians  themselves  admit  that, 
in  their  relations  with  the  pomaks  of  the  occupied  countries,  the  principle  of 
Article  46  was  not  observed.  Moreover,  the  mere  fact  cited  above  affords  an 
instance  of  the  violation,  or  of  the  intention  to  violate,  Article  18:  "Every 
latitude  is  left  to  prisoners  of  war  in  the  exercise  of  their  religion." 

To  sum  up,  there  was,  as  we  said  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter,  no  single 
article  in  the  Convention  of  1907  which  was  not  violated,  to  a  greater  or  lesser 
degree,  by  all  the  belligerents.  International  law  as  governing  war  exists,  and 
its  existence,  if  not  always  known,  is  at  least  guessed  at  by  all  the  world.  Yet, 
although  all  the  belligerent  States  had  signed  the  Conventions  in  question,  they 
did  not  regard  themselves  as  bound  to  conform  to  them. 

It  should,  however,  be  added  that  the  mere  fact  of  the  presence  of  the 
Commission  in  the  Balkans  has  already  done  something  to  recall  the  nature  of 
their  obligations  to  the  belligerents.  Where,  as  in  Eastern  Thrace,  the  Commis- 
sion was  expected,  a  Bulgarian  paper  observes  that  "the  atrocities  have  dimin- 
ished." On  the  Albanian  frontier,  on  the  other  hand,  where  atrocities  were 
beginning  again,  the  journey  of  the  Commission  was  opposed.  In  this  connec- 
tion a  question  was  raised  by  a  Servian  paper  which  deserves  notice,  whatever  be 
the  motive  for  their  action.  On  the  very  day  of  the  forced  departure  of  the 
Commission  (August  13/26),  the  Trgovinski  Glasnik  tried  to  justify  the  action 
of  the  Servian  government  by  stating  that  an  international  inquiry,  claiming  juridi- 
cal powers,  was  going  to  be  undertaken  in  the  Balkans,  whereas  such  powers 
belonged  exclusively,  in  an  independent  and  sovereign  country,  to  the  govern- 
ment. The  establishment  of  such  an  inquiry  was,  according  to  the  paper,  a 
limitation  of  sovereignty  and  an  interference  with  the  rights  of  the  State.  In 
so  far  as  the  State  does  not  consent  and  grant  special  permission  for  inquiry  to 
be  made,  the  mere  nomination  of  such  a  Commission  constituted  by  itself  "an 
act  of  international  arbitration." 

The  organ  of  "the  mercantile  youth  of  Belgrade"  indubitably  went  rather 
far.  The  function  of  the  Commission  was  in  no  sense  "juridical,"  and  its  con- 
clusions (to  some  extent  foreseen  by  the  paper  referred  to),  are  in  no  way 
analogous  to  intervention  by  international  diplomacy.  The  Commission  only 
represented  pacificist  public  opinion,  although  in  the  course  of  its  work  it  fre- 
quently received  assistance  from  the  States  concerned.  This  was  the  case  in 
Bulgaria,  where  it  had  the  opportunity  of  interrogating  official  personages  on  the 


234  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

facts  which  interested  it;  where  it  received  information  not  only  from  private 
persons  but  from  the  government  itself;  and  where  it  was  permitted  to  search 
the  archives  (the  Greek  letters)  and  to  communicate  with  State  institutions  (the 
government  departments,  the  Holy  Synod).  This  was  also  the  case  in  Greece 
to  some  extent. 

Nevertheless  the  question  raised  by  the  Trgovinski  Glasnik  is  not  super- 
fluous, and  the  Commission  deals  with  it  here.  Were  it  possible  for  there  to  be  a 
commission  of  inquiry  with  the  belligerent  armies,  during  war,  not  in  the  shape 
of  an  enterprise  organized  by  private  initiative,  but  as  an  international  institution, 
dependent  on  the  great  international  organization  of  governments,  which  is 
already  in  existence,  and  acts  intermittently  through  Hague  Conferences,  and 
permanently  through  the  Hague  Tribunal, — the  work  of  such  a  body  would 
possess  an  importance  and  an  utility  such  as  can  not  attach  to  a  mere  private 
commission.  Nevertheless,  the  Commission  has  succeeded  in  collecting  a  sub- 
stantial body  of  documents,  now  presented  to  the  reader.  It  has,  however,  met 
with  obstacles,  in  the  course  of  its  work,  which  have  cast  suspicion  on  its  mem- 
bers. A  commission  which  was  a  permanent  institution,  enjoying  the  sanction 
of  the  governments  which  signed  the  convention,  could  exercise  some  control 
in  the  application  of  these  conventions.  It  could  foresee  offences,  instead  of 
condemning  them  after  they  had  taken  place.  If  it  is  stated,  correctly  enough, 
that  conventions  can  not  be  carried  out  so  long  as  they  do  not  form  an  integral 
part  of  the  system  of  military  instruction,  it  may  be  stated  with  even  more  force, 
that  they  can  not  be  carried  out  without  a  severe  and  constant  control  in  the 
theater  of  war.  Diplomatic  agents  and  military  attaches  are  given  a  special  place 
with  the  army  in  action.  Military  writers  have  already  mooted  the  idea  of 
establishing  a  special  institution  for  the  correspondents  who  follow  the  army. 
Attention  ought,  therefore,  to  be  given  to  the  control  which  could  be  exercised 
by  an  international  commission,  not  there  to  divulge  military  secrets,  but  as  the 
guardian  of  the  army's  good  name,  while  pursuing  a  humanitarian  object. 

If  the  work  we  have  done  in  the  Balkans  could  lead  to  the  creation  of  such 
an  institution  as  this,  the  Commission  would  feel  its  efforts  and  its  trouble  richly 
rewarded,  and  would  find  there  a  recompense  for  the  ungrateful  task  under- 
taken at  the  risk  of  reawakening  animosity  and  drawing  down  upon  itself  re- 
proaches and  attacks.  May  their  task  then  be  the  prelude  to  a  work  destined 
to  grow! 


CHAPTER  VI 


Economic  Results  of  the  Balkan  Wars 

From  the  economic  point  of  view  war  is  a  destruction  of  wealth. 

Even  before  war  is  declared  the  prospect  of  conflict  between  the  countries, 
in  which  serious  difficulties  have  arisen,  affects  the  financial  situation.  Anxiety 
is  aroused  and  failures  caused  on  the  market  by  the  fluctuations  of  government 
and  other  securities  of  the  States  concerned.  Credit  facilities  are  restricted; 
monetary  circulation  disturbed ;  production  slackened ;  orders  falling  off  to  a 
marked  degree ;  and  an  uncertainty  prevails  which  reacts  harmfully  on  trade. 

Then  comes  the  declaration  of  war  and  mobilization.  The  able  bodied  men 
are  called  to  the  standards ;  between  one  day  and  the  next  work  stops  in  factories 
and  in  the  fields.  With  the  cessation  of  the  breadwinners'  wage,  the  basis  of 
the  family  budget,  the  wife  and  children  are  quickly  reduced  to  starvation,  and 
forced  to  seek  the  succor  of  their  parishes  and  the  State. 

The  whole  of  the  nation's  activities  are  turned  to  war.  Goods  and  passenger 
traffic  on  the  railways  come  to  an  end;  rolling  stock  and  rails  are  requisitioned 
for  the  rapid  concentration  of  men,  artillery,  ammunition  and  provisions  at  strate- 
gic points. 

Not  only  does  the  country  cease  to  produce,  but  it  consumes  with  great 
expense  in  the  hurry  of  operations.  Its  reserves  are  soon  exhausted;  the  taxes 
are  not  paid.  If  it  can  not  appeal  for  loans  or  purchases  from  abroad,  it  suffers 
profoundly. 

Then  the  fighting  begins,  and  with  it  the  hecatombs  of  the  battlefields,  the 
earth  heaped  with  dead,  the  hospitals  overflowing  with  wounded.  Thousands 
of  human  lives  are  sacrificed;  the  young,  the  strongest,  who  were  yesterday  the 
strength  of  their  country,  who  were  its  future  of  fruitful  labor,  are  laid  low  by 
shot  and  shell.  Those  who  do  not  die  in  the  dust  or  mud,  will  survive,  after 
countless  sufferings,  mutilated,  invalided,  no  longer  to  be  counted  on  for  the 
prosperity  of  the  land.  And  it  is  not  only  the  population,  that  essential  wealth, 
that  is  thus  annihilated.  In  a  few  hours  armies  use  up,  for  mutual  destruction, 
great  quantities  of  ammunition;  while  highly  expensive  supplies  of  cannon,  gun 
carriages  and  arms  are  ruined.  There  is  destructive  bombardment  of  towns,  vil- 
lages in  flames,  the  harvests  stamped  down  or  burned,  bridges,  the  most  costly 
items  of  a  railway,  blown  up. 

The  regions  traversed  by  the  armies  are  ravaged.  The  noncombatants  have 
to  suffer  the  fortune  of  war ;  invasion,  excesses  and  it  may  be  flight,  with  the  loss 
of  their  goods.  Thousands  of  wretched  families  thus  seek  security  at  the  price 


236  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

of  cruel  fatigue  and  the  loss  of  everything,  their  land  and  their  traditions, 
acquired  by  the  efforts  of  many  generations. 

The  Commission  arrived  in  the  Balkans  after  the  fighting  was  over,  and  was 
able  to  study  the  results  of  the  war,  at  the  very  moment  when,  the  period  of 
conflict  closed,  each  nation  was  beginning  to  make  its  inventory. 

The  armies  were  returning  to  their  homes  after  demobilization.  The  soldier 
again  became  peasant,  workman,  merchant;  the  hour  of  the  settling  of  accounts, 
individual  and  collective,  had  struck. 

The  government,  which  had  been  in  the  hands  of  the  military  during  the 
war,  was  restored  to  the  civil  authorities  and  the  period  of  regular  financial 
settlement  began. 

Nevertheless,  the  traces  of  the  war  were  still  fresh.  The  Commission  noted 
them.  If  the  corpses  of  the  victims  were  not  visible  their  countless  graves  were 
everywhere,  the  mounds  not  yet  invaded  by  the  grass  that  next  summer  will  hide 
them  away.  Visible  too  were  the  wounded  in  the  hospitals  and  the  mutilated 
men  in  the  streets  and  on  the  roads;  the  black  flags,  hanging  outside  the  doors 
of  the  hovels,  a  dismal  sign  of  the  mourning  caused  by  the  war  and  its  sad 
accompaniment,  cholera. 

The  members  of  the  Commission  saw  towns  and  villages  laid  in  ashes,  their 
walls  calcined,  the  house  fronts  torn  open  by  shell  or  stripped  of  their  plaster 
by  riddling  shot.  They  went  through  the  camps  at  the  city  gates  where  streams 
of  families  fleeing  before  the  enemy  made  a  halt.  All  along  the  roads  they  came 
upon  their  wretched  caravans. 

The  Commission  has  endeavored  to  make  an  estimate  of  the  cost  of  the 
double  war.  Instruction  on  this  head  is  needful.  Public  opinion  needs  to  be 
directed  and  held  to  this  point.  It  is  too  easily  carried  away  by  admiration  for 
feats  of  arms,  exalted  by  historians  and  poets;  it  needs  to  be  made  to  know 
all  the  butchery  and  destruction  that  go  to  make  a  victory ;  to  learn  the  absurdity 
of  the  notion,  especially  at  the  present  time,  that  war  can  enrich  a  country; 
to  understand  how,  even  from  far  off,  war  reacts  on  all  nations  to  their  dis- 
comfort and  even  to  their  serious  injury.  As  Mr.  Leon  Bourgeois  put  it  at  a 
conference  recently  held  at  Ghent: 

The  smallest,  imperceptible  movements  of  the  keel  of  every  barque  that 
sinks  or  rises  in  the  tiniest  port  on  the  coast  of  France,  Belgium  or  England, 
are  determined  by  the  vast  ebb  and  flow  of  all  the  tides  and  currents  that 
together  make  up  the  breathing  of  the  ocean.  In  the  same  way  the  profit 
and  loss  of  every  little  tradesman  in  the  corner  of  his  shop,  the  wages  of 
every  workman  toiling  in  a  factory  are  influenced  incessantly  by  the  tremen- 
dous pulsation  of  the  universal  movement  of  international  exchange. 

Every  war  upsets  this  universal  movement,  especially  today  when  the  soli- 
darity of  international  interests  is  so  marked.  Let  us  see  how  far  the  Balkan  war 
was  a  cause  of  national  and  international  economic  disturbance. 


ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS 


237 


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ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS 


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ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS 


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REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 


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ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS  243 

The  balance  sheet  of  the  war  must  bear  at  its  beginning,  in  order  to  charac- 
terize it  properly,  the  list  of  the  dead  and  wounded.  Human  lives  brutally 
destroyed  by  arms,  existences  broken  off  in  suffering  after  wounds  and  sickness, 
healthy  organizations  mutilated  for  ever;  this  is  the  result  of  the  war,  these  its 
consequenpes  of  blood  and  pain. 

Below  is  the  sinister  inventory. 

Bulgaria  had  579  officers  and  44,313  soldiers  killed.  Seventy-one  officers, 
7,753  soldiers  are  reported  missing, — how  many  of  these  are  dead?  One  thou- 
sand, seven  hundred  and  thirty-one  officers,  102,853  soldiers  were  more  or  less 
seriously  wounded.  A  great  number  of  these  will  remain  invalids,  reduced 
greatly  in  strength  or  deprived  of  a  limb.  An  idea  of  the  extent  of  the  ravage 
caused  upon  the  surviving  men  who  were  struck  by  projectiles,  may  be  gathered 
from  the  following  telegram  published  by  the  agencies,  October  20,  1913.  The 
telegram  comes  from  Vienna : 

Queen  Eleonora  of  Bulgaria,  who  distinguished  herself  during  the  war 
by  her  humanitarian  efforts,  has  just  ordered  a  large  number  of  artificial 
legs  to  be  supplied  to  the  soldiers  who  underwent  amputation. 

The  Queen  has  had  workmen  experienced  in  this  line  sent  to  Sofia  to 
open  a  factory  for  artificial  legs  in  the  town. 

This  is  an  economic  result  of  war  to  be  noted, — the  creation  of  the  artificial 
leg  industry. 

Servia  published  first  of  all  the  following  losses:  about  22,000  dead  and 
25,000  wounded.  These  figures  were  given  to  us,  dated  September  30,  1913, 
by  the  secretary  of  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs. 

Information  coming  from  another  source  gives  a  smaller  number  of  dead, 
16,500,  but  a  greater  number  of  wounded,  48,000.  Sickness  is  said  to  have 
attacked  45,000  men  of  the  Servian  army.  On  February  27,  1914,  the  official 
figures  were  given  to  the  Skupshtina  by  the  Minister  of  War.  They  are  12,000 
to  13,000  killed;  17,800  to  18,800  dead  as  the  result  of  wounds,  cholera,  or 
sickness;  48,000  wounded. 

Servians  and  Bulgarians  bore  their  wounds  with  a  physical  endurance  that 
all  the  doctors  and  surgeons  remarked  upon.  The  wounds  healed  rapidly.  This 
shows  that  these  people  are  sober  and  their  organs  are  not  poisoned  and  enfee- 
bled by  alcohol. 

It  was  impossible  for  us  to  find  out  the  figures  of  the  Greek,  Montenegrin 
or  Turkish  losses.  In  spite  of  our  persistence  in  asking  the  Greek  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs  for  this  information,  we  have  not  yet  been  able  to  get  it; 
reports  on  this  matter  not  yet  having  been  centralized.  The  losses  of  the  Greeks 
must  have  been  a  good  deal  less  than  those  of  the  Bulgarians  or  Servians.  The 
Montenegrins  are  said  to  have  had  a  great  many  killed  in  proportion  to  their 
number  on  account  of  their  attitude  under  fire.  Their  pride  made  them  expose 


244  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

themselves  to  the  bullets,  refusing  to  lie  down  or  shelter,  fighting  as  in  the  old 
times  when  weapons  were  of  short  range  and  less  murderous. 

From  Turkey  we  have  no  official  information,  in  spite  of  our  reiterated 
requests.  It  is  probable,  too,  that  Turkey  possesses  no  means  of  establishing 
even  approximate  statistics.  All  that  the  war  correspondents  have  related  en- 
ables us  to  say  that  Turkey  must  have  paid  heavy  toll  to  death,  as  much  from 
the  blows  of  their  enemies  as  from  the  epidemics  following  their  want  of  care 
and  lack  of  provisions  in  the  panic  of  confusion  and  defeat. 

This  is  not  all.  Arms  were  not  only  taken  up  against  the  belligerents,  but 
massacres  took  place  in  Macedonia  and  Albania.  Old  people,  villagers,  farmers, 
women  and  children,  fell  victims  to  the  war.  What  must  their  number  be  ? 

It  is  not  possible  to  compute,  chapter  by  chapter,  the  extent  of  the  material 
losses  by  destruction  of  property.  The  Balkan  States  in  their  claims  before  the 
Financial  Commission  of  Paris,  did  not  detail  them,  except  Greece,  which  certainly 
underwent  the  smallest  loss  in  the  first  war.  In  the  war  of  the  allies,  the  part 
of  Macedonia  which  was  given  to  Greece  was,  on  the  contrary,  widely  devas- 
tated, and  the  vast  fires  of  Serres,  Doxato,  Kilkish,  were  real,  material  disasters. 

Greece  has  made  the  following  claims  for  destruction  of  property  due  to 
the  first  war: 

In  the  course  of  hostilities,  the  Ottoman  armies  fleeing  before  the 
Hellenic  armies,  left  behind  them  a  country  absolutely  devastated  by  pillage, 
massacre  and  fire.  Nearly  170  villages  were  the  prey  of  fire,  several  thou- 
sand old  people,  women  and  children  escaping  from  death,  ruined,  starving, 
exhausted,  sought  and  found  refuge  in  the  neighboring  provinces  of  Greece. 
For  several  months  they  lived  at  the  expense  of  the  Hellenic  government, 
which  when  the  campaign  was  over,  had  to  supply  them  with  means  to  enable 
them  to  go  back  to  their  native  country. 

The  Hellenic  government  has  met  414  claims  for  these  unfortunate 
victims. 

Among  the  claims,  ninety  came  from  burnt  villages  where  the  losses, 
duly  certified  by  competent  Metropolites,  amount  to  fr.  7,737,100. 

The  total  of  the  414  claims  is  fr.  10,966,370. 

The  preceding  chapters  have  given  the  reader  some  means  of  forming  for 
himself  an  idea  of  the  devastation  committed  in  the  Balkans.  The  photographs 
which  we  reproduce  spare  us  from  describing  it.  The  havoc  committed  was  of 
two  kinds :  one  lawful  and  the  other  directed  against  private  property. 

The  first  was  that  which  strategy  or  the  security  of  the  troops  necessitated. 
Bridges  blown  up  by  dynamite,  railway  tracks  destroyed,  fortifications  razed,  the 
bombarding  of  the  cities  that  offered  resistance,  burning  the  hiding  places  of  the 
enemy,  destroying,  in  retreat,  provisions  and  ammunition,  in  order  to  leave  noth- 
ing for  the  enemy;  all  these  are  lawful  acts  in  time  of  warfare. 

Then  there  are  the  reprisals ;  made  as  they  are  in  the  ardor  of  the  struggle, 


ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS 


245 


FIG.   36. — RUINS   OF  VOINITSA 

in  the  heat  of  victory  and  in  a  moment  of  anger,  they  are  often  an  excuse  for 
odious  vengeance,  for  unpardonable  violence  against  things  and  people. 

And  once  started,  how  is  it  possible  to  hold  back  the  soldiers?  They  set 
fire  to  everything,  pillage  and  destroy  for  destruction's  sake.  In  the  Balkans 
there  was,  in  this  way,  ruin  of  every  kind  amounting  to  millions. 

The  Balkan  wars  were  not,  however,  in  point  of  view  of  their  economic 
consequences,  wars  such  as  may  occur  between  great  industrial  states.  They 
exhibit  special  characteristics  which  we  must  throw  into  relief. 

General  mobilization  would  be  a  real  disaster  in  any  industrial  country. 
Every  factory,  except  those  which  provide  the  necessaries  of  existence  or  arma- 
ments, must  be  shut  down  in  the  absence  of  their  hands.  Even  those  which 
might  contrive  to  keep  running  by  using  the  labor  of  women  and  those  old  men 


FIG.  37. — RUINS   OF  VOINITSA 


246  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

exempted  from  military  service,  could  not  do  so  long  in  the  stoppage  of  the 
necessary  supplies  of  raw  material  which  follows  the  requisitioning  of  the  per- 
manent way  and  rolling  stock  of  the  railways  for  the  transport  of  troops. 

Furnaces  shut  down,  machinery  silent,  huge  factories  deserted, — such  is  the 
immediate  result  of  mobilization.  It  is  a  dangerous  time  for  capital  investments, 
and,  if  prolonged,  leads  to  heavy  failures. 

Workmen's  families  subsisting  on  weekly  or  fortnightly  wages  are  soon  re- 
duced to  starvation  when  the  husband  and  grown-up  sons  have  gone  to  the  front. 
Small  economies  can  not  keep  the  wife  and  children  left  behind  going  for  long. 
Millions  of  persons  are  thrown  on  the  resources  of  the  parishes  and  of  the 
State,  and  in  spite  of  the  heavy  charge  thus  created,  the  people  endure  severe 
privations. 

At  a  time  of  mobilization  payment  of  debts  is  suspended  by  the  moratorium. 
This  causes  great  inconvenience  to  trade  which  is  further  deprived  of  a  great 
body  of  consumers.  Provisions  become  dear,  communication  with  the  exterior  is 
cut  off,  and  with  the  interior  monopolized  by  the  military  administration,  produc- 
tion is  at  a  standstill.  Those  who  draw  their  income  from  investments  or  pen- 
sions find  the  sources  of  their  daily  expenditure  dried  up ;  this  is  the  case  with 
landlords  whose  rents  do  not  come  in  and  bondholders  whose  interest  is  reduced 
or  delayed  by  the  State,  which  is  giving  all  it  has  to  the  war. 

The  point  need  not  be  labored;  it  is  easy  to  imagine  the  immediate  distress 
which  is  produced  in  any  highly  developed  industrial  State  by  mobilization. 

These  consequences  were  found  by  the  Commission  to  have  been  produced 
in  the  Balkans  to  some  extent,  remarkably  lessened,  however,  by  the  fact  that 
Servia  and  Bulgaria  are  almost  exclusively  agricultural  countries,  and  that 
Greece,  too,  although  more  developed  industrially,  is  predominantly  agricultural. 

From  the  appearance  of  the  countryside  in  Servia  and  Bulgaria  one  would 
hardly  have  guessed  that  war  had  deprived  the  fields  of  their  normal  laborers. 
In  the  husband's  absence  the  wife  worked  in  the  field,  taking  a  kind  of  pride  in 
producing  a  good  harvest.  Thus  when  foreign  trade  restarted  there  were  con- 
siderable quantities  of  oats  and  maize  from  the  fields  to  export  and  current  coin 
came  in  to  pay  for  these  exports.  The  Bulgarian  Minister  of  Commerce  put 
the  receipts  that  would  come  into  the  country  from  the  sale  of  cereals  as  soon  as 
trade  restarted  at  fifty-five  or  sixty  million  francs'  worth  (two  million,  two 
hundred  thousand,  to  two  million,  four  hundred  thousand  pounds). 

Thus  in  the  Balkan  States  war  has  not  produced  the  depths  of  individual 
misery  which  it  would  cause  in  a  country  with  an  industrial  proletariat  dependent 
on  a  daily  wage.  Over  a  large  part  of  Bulgaria,  Servia  and  Greece  the  circum- 
stances under  which  the  family  lives  and  develops  are  those  of  peasant  pro- 
prietorship. When  the  head  of  the  family  went  to  join  the  army  he  left  his 
dependents  in  a  homestead,  in  which  there  was  always  a  certain  supply  of 
provisions  on  the  soil  from  which  food  of  some  sort  was  always  to  be  gotten. 


ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS  247 

Though  there  was  less  comfort,  there  was  no  such  distress  requiring  the  succor 
of  the  State  as  would  arise  where  the  workers  live  in  large  agglomerations. 

In  the  fields  the  women  and  children  continued  to  subsist  on  their  own 
resources,  and  to  produce.  The  calls  upon  the  savings  banks  came  from  the 
towns,  and  from  the  soldiers,  who  did  not  wish  to  join  the  army  without  some 
pocket  money.  In  Bulgaria,  down  to  July,  1912,  the  rate  of  deposits  and  with- 
drawals from  the  savings  bank  was  normal.  In  July  marked  variations  began. 
The  number  of  deposits  fell  from  22,834  in  July  to  19,914  in  August,  and  their 
value  from  fr.  3,167,645  to  fr.  2,889,400.  This  tendency  grew  more  marked; 
in  September  there  were  10,516  deposits  worth  fr.  2,020,723;  in  October  3,637 
worth  fr.  1,193,656.  The  effect  on  withdrawals  was  naturally  still  more  marked. 
In  February,  1912,  their  total  exceeded  three  millions,  higher  than  at  any  time 
in  1911.  In  August  the  figure  was  the  same.  September,  when  mobilization 
took  place,  saw  a  perfect  rush  of  depositors ;  on  the  same  day  on  which  the 
mobilization  order  was  issued,  all  those  presenting  themselves  received  in  full 
the  sums  demanded.  Seven  paying  desks  were  opened.  On  the  18th  payments 
were  limited  to  fr.  500;  on  the  29th  to  fr.  200,  the  rest  of  the  sum  demanded 
being  paid  five  days  later.  Exception  was  made  in  the  case  of  soldiers ;  they 
were  paid  in  full  without  delay.  This  limitation  of  payment  lasted  for  twenty- 
five  days.  In  September  fr.  4,210,244  were  withdrawn.  It  was  the  only  month  in 
1912  in  which  withdrawals  exceeded  deposits.  Throughout  the  war  the  total 
of  the  latter  remained  at  a  pretty  high  level. 

In  1913  business  became  regular;  in  May  deposits  rose  to  over  three  mil- 
lions. July,  the  month  in  which  demobilization  took  place,  was  a  repetition  of 
August  of  the  previous  year.  Withdrawals  exceeded  deposits,  being  fr.  1,573,196 
against  fr.  1,209,522. 

The  figures  supplied  us  by  the  savings  bank  acting  in  connection  with  the 
Athenian  banks  show  that  there  was  no  panic  among  savings  bank  depositors  in 
Greece  either.  The  total  amount  of  deposits  was  fr.  40,257,000  on  June  30,  1912 ; 
it  had  risen  to  fr.  59,365,000  on  June  30,  1913. 

Those  who  suffered  most  from  the  war  in  Bulgaria  and  Servia  were  the 
artisans,  small  traders  and  small  manufacturers.  Their  position  will  not  be  able 
to  be  gauged  till  after  the  expiry  of  the  moratorium.  In  Bulgaria  it  was  pro- 
claimed on  September  17,  1912,  to  last  a  year.  The  Commission  was  in  Sofia 
when  it  terminated;  representatives  of  the  banking  houses  having  agreed  to 
prolong  it  in  fact.  They  decided  simply  to  take  steps  to  protect  themselves 
against  suspected  debtors  without  going  so  far  as  to  act  against  them. 

The  vServian  moratorium  was  prolonged  by  law  to  January  3,  1914. 

In  Servia  and  Bulgaria  the  war  put  a  stop  to  all  productive  transport  by  rail ; 
in  Greece  to  most  of  the  sea  transport.  Greece  had  eighty-seven  ships  held  up  at 
Constantinople,  and  twenty-three  cargo  boats  in  the  Black  Sea.  The  receipts 
of  the  Bulgarian  railways,  which  amounted  to  fr.  29,602,355  from  September, 


FIG.  38. — RAVAGES  OF  THE  WAR. 
..; .-;!  r.v'rf  ";iyu?  j; 


.   39. — RAVAGES   OF   THE   WAR 


ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS 


249 


FIG.   40. — RAVAGES   OF   THE   WAR 


FIG.   41. — RAVAGES   OF   THE   WAR 


250  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

1911,  to  September,  1912,  were  nonexistent  for  the  corresponding  period  1912-13. 
The  rails  and  stock  were  mobilized  and  used  exclusively  for  the  army,  which 
owed  the  State  a  sum  of  fr.  7,637,418  on  account  of  transport.  On  the  other 
hand,  mobilization  involved  considerable  wear  and  tear  of  material  and  special 
accommodation  works ;  war  brought  with  it  the  destruction  of  bridges ;  at  Dede- 
Agatch,  Greece  seized  some  engines  and  carriages  which  had  just  been  disem- 
barked on  their  way  to  Bulgaria.  Bulgaria's  expenses  from  these  sources  are 
put  at  fr.  22,984,680. 

Thus  for  Bulgaria  the  railways'  account  works  out  at:  loss  of  receipts, 
nearly  fr.  30,000,000;  expenditure  on  repairs  and  purchases,  fr.  23,000,000.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  State  is  in  its  own  debt  on  account  of  army  transports  to  the 
extent  of  nearly  fr.  8,000,000.  Figures  under  this  head  for  Servia  are  not  avail- 
able. In  1911  the  receipts  from  its  railways  amounted  to  fifteen  to  sixteen 
million  francs,  a  sum  which  must  have  failed  entirely  during  the  war. 

Greece  estimates  the  cost  of  railway  transport  of  her  troops  at  fr.  6,000,000, 
and  sea  transport  at  fr.  30,000,000. 

Just  as  the  war  did  not  prevent  the  harvest  in  Bulgaria  and  Servia  from 
being  collected,  Greece,  at  the  top  of  a  wave  of  economic  prosperity,  was  able 
to  support  it  too  without  a  crisis.  Its  economic  activity  was  impeded  but  not 
brought  to  a  standstill  since  the  army  was  thrown  at  once  across  the  frontiers 
invading  Turkish  territory;  the  soil  of  Greece  itself  was  spared  the  movements 
of  troops  and  battles. 

The  absence  of  the  men  on  active  service  did,  of  course,  cause  a  stoppage 
of  industrial  productivity.  For  example,  the  central  office  of  the  National  Bank 
of  Athens  was  120  employes  short,  a  third  of  its  staff.  Grave  losses  were 
sustained  by  the  mercantile  marine,  which  is  one  of  the  principal  Greek  indus- 
tries. But  there  was  no  financial  panic.  The  moratorium  was  used  exclusively 
by  the  Bank  of  Athens,  and  for  a  very  short  time,  because  of  its  branch  estab- 
lishments, in  Turkey.  Government  stock  fell  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  but 
the  fall  was  brief ;  business  soon  revived  and  rising  prices  followed. 

The  balances  of  the  savings  banks  instituted  by  the  banks  increased,  as 
has  already  been  pointed  out.  There  was  a  slow  increase  in  loans  on  securities ; 
a  falling  off  in  loans  on  goods. 

The  war  showed  Greece  that  she  had  resources  to  some  extent  scattered 
all  over  the  world.  Effective  aid  in  men  and  money  came  from  those  of  her 
sons  who  had  emigrated.  The  exodus  of  the  Greek  population  is  so  considerable 
that  Mr.  Repoulis,  Minister  of  the  Interior,  found  it  necessary  to  pass  a  law 
for  its  regulation.  From  1885  down  to  the  end  of  1911,  188,245  Greeks  left 
their  native  land,  most  of  them  going  to  the  United  States.  In  1911  the  total, 
37,021,  was  composed  of  34,105  men  and  2,916  women.  The  age  distribution 
was  as  follows:  between  fourteen  and  forty-five,  35,485;  under  fourteen,  1,006; 


ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS  251 

over  forty-five,  430.  Thus,  those  who  leave  are  the  flower  of  the  population. 
Emigration  takes  9.5  in  every  thousand  a  year ;  in  Italy  only  5.8  per  thousand. 

It  is  true  that  the  Greek  abroad  guards  his  nationality  and  his  traditions 
jealously;  and  when  his  country  is  in  danger  he  returns,  no  matter  how  remote 
he  be,  to  defend  it.  In  the  late  war  between  25,000  and  30,000  men  came  back 
to  Gre'ece  and  helped  to  carry  the  national  arms  to  victory. 

At  all  times  Greek  emigrants  bear  their  share  in  the  national  prosperity  by 
sending  home  their  capital.  In  1910  fr.  20,427,062.65  were  received  from 
America  in  postal  orders;  in  1911,  fr.  19,579,887.65.  From  the  same  source 
there  stood  in  the  banks  deposits  amounting  in  1910  to  fr.  55,471,460;  in  1911  to 
fr.  47,323,059.  The  influx  of  wealth,  resulting  from  emigration,  will  certainly 
end  in  arresting  the  tide  of  departures.  The  Greek,  indeed,  leaves  his  country 
because  the  supply  is  in  excess  of  the  demand  of  labor;  also  to  some  extent 
under  the  stimulus  of  the  love  of  adventure,  because  of  a  character  more  in- 
clined to  commercial  than  productive  activity,  and  because  of  the  attractions 
held  out  by  emigration  offices. 

The  capital  thus  acquired  abroad  will  enrich  the  country.  There  are  plenty 
of  places,  admirably  watered,  which  are  not  used  for  market  gardening.  Greece 
imports  fr.  210,000  worth  of  eggs;  honey,  a  national  product,  is  also  imported. 
According  to  Mr.  Repoulis,  the  ignorance  of  the  cultivators  is  something  incred- 
ible, with  the  result  that  the  soil  produces  but  half  the  average  yield  in  wheat 
of  more  advanced  countries.  Very  high  prices  for  land  are  now  being  gotten  in 
some  provinces,  thanks  to  the  emigrants'  money.  When  they  have  made  their 
fortune,  the  Greeks  come  back  more  and  more  to  settle  in  their  native  country, 
bringing  with  them  new  methods  and  a  spirit  of  initiative,  thus  keeping  on 
the  land,  by  giving  them  work  and  instruction,  the  peasants  who  would  other- 
wise have  gone  abroad  in  their  turn. 

The  maintenance  of  a  monetary  currency  by  Greece  during  the  last  war 
is  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  the  emigrants  who  returned  to  take  their  places 
in  the  ranks  brought  considerable  sums  of  money  with  them  which  they  deposited 
specially  in  the  national  bank.  Between  September  30,  1912,  the  month  in  which 
war  was  declared,  and  July  31,  1913,  the  amount  of  deposits  in  the  national  bank 
grew  steadily.  From  fr.  197,785,000  at  the  former  date  it  rose  to  fr.  249,046,000 
on  the  latter.  The  same  is  true  of  all  the  branches  of  the  Bank  of  Athens.  The 
total,  which  was  fr.  352,762,000  on  June  30,  1912,  rose  to  fr.  441,681,000  on 
June  30,  1913. 

Thus,  thanks  to  the  preponderance  of  agriculture,  to  the  system  of  small 
estates,  and,  in  Greece,  to  emigration,  Bulgaria,  Greece  and  Servia  were  able 
to  bear  a  long  war,  which  was  sometimes  painful  and  cruel,  without  any  pause 
in  their  production,  and  without  any  deep  upheaval;  this  is  due  to  the  economic 
resistance  shown  by  each  family  firmly  established  on  its  own  land. 


252  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Nevertheless,  there  were  antagonistic  tides  of  feeling,  due  to  national  jeal- 
ousy and  enmity,  which  threw  numerous  families  into  exile. 

One  of  the  saddest  spectacles  presented  to  the  Commission  was  the  case 
of  the  refugees.  Their  presence  caused  grave  financial  difficulties  to  the  States 
which  took  them  in  and  their  reestablishment  presented  an  important  economic 
problem.  The  refugees  seen  by  the  Commission  in  Greece  and  in  Bulgaria 
were  fugitives  from  countries  which  conquest  and  treaties  had  transformed  into 
alien  territories.  In  Greece  there  were  Moslems  from  parts  of  Macedonia  and 
Thrace,  now  Bulgarian,  who  followed  the  Greek  army,  encouraged  thereto,  ac- 
cording to  the  evidence  we  have  collected,  by  the  Greeks,  who  promised  them 
protection,  subsistence,  lands.  In  Bulgaria  there  were  again  Moslems  and  in 
larger  number  Bulgarians  who  had  fled  before  the  Serbs  and  Greeks,  the  new 
and  jealous  masters  of  the  parts  of  Macedonia  in  which  they  had  been 
established. 

A  sort  of  classification  thus  took  the  place  of  the  tangle  of  nationalities  in 
Macedonia  and  for  a  time  the  population  of  the  country,  newly  divided  between 
Servia,  Greece  and  Bulgaria,  was  willy  nilly  divided  according  to  nationality 
within  the  new  frontiers.  This  did  not  last,  for  the  emigrants,  weary  of  wan- 
dering and  of  the  pain  of  starvation  and  drawn  to  their  abandoned  fields,  grad- 
ually returned  home. 

At  the  gates  of  Salonica  the  Commission  saw  a  countless  herd  of  more  than 
ten  thousand  persons  stationed  in  the  plain.  The  families  were  installed  under 
the  high  wagons  with  heavy  wooden  frames  and  wooden  wheels,  without  iron 
hoops,  which  had  brought  them  there  with  their  worldly  goods  in  the  shape  of 
a  rug  or  two  and  a  few  domestic  utensils.  The  cattle  were  straying  in  the  field. 
As  need  drove  them  the  refugees  sold  their  animals  for  ludicrous  prices,  a  cow 
for  two  pounds,  an  ox  for  three.  The  men  hung  about  ready  for  long  idle 
talks  with  strangers.  In  Salonica  all  the  unoccupied  houses  were  filled  with 
refugees. 

At  Sofia  the  schools  and  public  buildings  sheltered  thousands  of  these 
wretches.  Everywhere  the  Commission  came  upon  them,  waiting  in  crowds  for 
the  free  food  distribution,  drawn  up  in  long  lines  of  caravans  on  the  roads, 
collected  in  groups  under  any  sort  of  shelter,  suffering  from  famine,  decimated 
by  disease.  In  the  market  place  of  Samokov  a  woman  told  us  her  story,  which 
was  that  of  most:  "When  they  cried  out  that  the  Greek  horse  were  coming,  my 
husband  took  two  children  and  I  took  two.  We  ran.  In  the  scrimmage  I 
dropped  the  smallest  one,  whom  I  was  carrying.  I  couldn't  pick  him  up  again. 
I  don't  know  where  my  husband  and  the  other  two  are.  I  want  him,  I  want 
him,"  she  cried  again  and  again,  as  she  told  us  of  the  poor  little  one,  trampled 
under  foot.  In  her  arms  she  held  the  one  she  had  saved.  In  the  night  he  died. 

It  is  impossible  to  think  without  emotion  of  what  this  exodus  of  peoples 
caused  by  war  represents  in  terms  of  suffering  and  tears. 


ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS 


253 


FIG.  42. — REFUGEES 


FIG.  43. — REFUGEES 


254 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 


FIG.  44. — REFUGEES 


FIG.  45. — REFUGEES 


ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS 


255 


FIG.  46. — REFUGEES 


FIG.  47. — REFUGEES 


256 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 


FIG.  48. — REFUGKES 


FIG.  49. — REFUGEES 


ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS  257 

For  the  State  the  refugees  were  a  heavy  burden.  Greece  had  close  on 
157,000  refugees  on  her  hands,  all  of  which  cases  were  investigated  and  assisted. 
The  maximum  number  was  reached  on  August  11,  when  there  were  156,659 
refugees.  The  necessary  means  of  transport  were  provided  for  the  Moslems 
who  desired  to  go  to  Turkey-in-Asia,  by  national  committees  constituted  for 
the  purpose.  The  Commission  saw  two  great  transport  loads  of  these  emigrants 
leave  Salonica.  For  the  others  Greece  had  to  provide  food,  and  meat,  bread 
and  biscuits  were  distributed  among  them.  Philanthropic  societies  collected 
clothes  and  blankets  for  them.  The  State  estimated  the  cost  per  refugee  at 
fifteen  centimes,  which  shows  that  only  the  necessaries  of  bare  subsistence  were/ 
provided. 

Committees  were  appointed  to  consider  the  best  means  of  settling  the  re- 
maining refugees,  whose  number  was  put  at  about  90,000.  Landowners  and 
manufacturers  came  forward  with  offers  of  employment  for  larger  and  larger 
numbers  every  day,  as  agricultural  and  day  laborers  and  farmers.  The  villages 
abandoned  by  the  Bulgar  population  and  the  vast  Turkish  public  domain  afforded 
lodging  and  land. 

Greece,  who  has  already  established  thousands  of  refugees,  under  identical 
conditions,  in  Thessaly,  hopes  to  derive  much  profit  from  the  living  wealth  of 
this  influx  of  population.  The  period  of  disorder  once  over,  the  people,  well 
directed  and  well  distributed,  will  be  an  element  of  prosperity  to  the  nation. 
But,  before  this  day  comes,  great  expenditure  will  have  been  required  on  main- 
tenance, buildings,  agricultural  implements  and  the  small  capital  sum  to  enable 
each  family  to  take  root.  To  put  the  expenditure  at  twenty-five  or  thirty  mil- 
lion francs  is  not  an  excessive  estimate.  The  experience  gained  in  Thessaly 
in  1906  may  afford  a  basis  for  calculation.  After  the  Roumelian  incidents,  there 
were  27,000  Greek  refugees.  After  the  first  shock  was  over  a  certain  number 
of  families  returned;  3,200  remained,  representing  between  17,000  and  18,000 
persons.  Greece  undertook  to  establish  them  as  peasant  proprietors.  For  two 
and  a  half  years  they  were  maintained  at  an  expense  of  nearly  twelve  million 
francs.  Then  land  was  bought,  villages  created,  houses  built  for  their  establish- 
ment, at  the  cost  of  an  additional  thirteen  million.  Greece  had  no  intention  of 
making  them  a  present  of  all  that,  but  the  advances  have  been  repaid  on  so  small 
a  scale,  that  the  loan  has  become  a  bad  debt. 

This  experience  should  serve  also  to  show  the  error  of  making  the  State 
the  creditor  of  poor  refugees.  The  declared  intention  of  Mr.  Diomedes,  the 
Finance  Minister,  is  to  make  the  refugees  of  1913  peasant  proprietors  through 
the  medium  of  an  agricultural  bank,  which  will  advance  them  the  necessary  money. 

Bulgaria  harbored  104,360  persons.  There,  as  in  Greece,  they  had  to 
be  supported  so  far  as  resources  permitted.  At  Sofia  the  Commission  could  see 
that  real  attention  was  given  to  the  refugees,  with  important  help,  it  is  true;  from 


258  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

charitable  societies.  The  cost  of  their  daily  maintenance  was  estimated  at  forty 
centimes  per  head. 

Of  these  refugees  some  30,000  came  from  parts  of  Thrace  recovered  by 
Turkey,  and  50,000  from  Macedonian  districts  assigned  to  Servia  or  Greece. 
According  to  returns  made  by  the  Bulgarian  government,  40,000  persons,  or 
10,000  families,  left  their  homes  without  hope  of  returning.  Homes  will  have 
to  be  found  for  them  then  on  the  banks  of  the  Maritza  or  the  Arda  or  on  the 
JEgean  littoral;  the  expense  of  such  settlement  will  be  heavy  and  may  be  put 
at  eighteen  or  twenty  millions.  It  is  not  only  the  unhappy  refugees,  however, 
who  present  a  problem  of  nationality  and  of  settlement  to  the  countries  which 
have  harbored  them. 

Foreign  concessionaires  and  heads  of  industrial  concerns  are  established  in 
the  conquered  territories;  their  status  must  be  denned  in  relation  to  the  con- 
quering countries,  allowance  being  made  for  rights  already  acquired.  The  task 
is  a  delicate  one,  and  was  handed  to  the  Financial  Commission  in  Paris,  which 
arrived  at  a  solution  in  June-July,  1913.  The  Balkan  States  have  succeeded  to 
the  rights  and  charges  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  with  regard  to  those  enjoying 
concessions  and  contracts  in  the  ceded  territories.  No  one  has  contested  the 
principle  of  this  succession,  and  it  is  probable  that  had  any  difficulty  been  raised 
about  it  the  Great  Powers  would  have  upheld  the  material  interests  of  their 
subjects. 

On  the  question  of  the  nationality  of  these  companies,  the  Financial  Com- 
mission on  Balkan  matters  sitting  in  Paris,  unanimously  agreed  that  a  non- 
Ottoman  company  should,  under  whatever  circumstances,  retain  its  nationality, 
despite  the  annexation  of  the  territory  in  which  its  field  of  operations  lay. 
Turkish  companies  having  their  headquarters  and  their  entire  works  in  the  same 
annexed  territory,  should  adopt  as  their  right,  the  nationality  of  the  annexing 
State. 

Companies  with  headquarters  in  Turkey,  while  the  whole  of  their  workings 
lay  within  a  single  one  of  the  annexing  countries,  might  elect  to  adopt  the 
nationality  of  the  annexing  country,  and  in  that  case  to  transfer  their  head- 
quarters thither  or  state  that  they  intended  to  retain  Ottoman  nationality. 

The  position  of  mining  concessions  was  determined  as  follows : 

Succession  will  take  place  by  right  without  any  further  formalities  than 
a  conventional  deposit  and  the  registration  of  the  terms  of  the  agreement,  the 
whole  free  of  stamps  or  any  expense.  The  mining  regulations  of  the  annexing 
State  apply  to  the  concessionaires  only  in  so  far  as  they  involve  no  infringement 
of  acquired  rights,  that  is  to  say,  in  so  far  as  they  are  not  contrary  to  the  clauses 
in  the  concession,  agreement  or  contract.  At  the  same  time  such  clauses  can  not 
be  made  use  of  to  appeal  against  the  application  of  police  supervision  and  in- 
spection designed  to  secure  safety  in  working  or  against  forfeiture  of  the  con- 
cession where  work  is  not  done.  The  annexing  governments  succeed  the  Ottoman 


ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS  259 

government  in  the  obligation  to  hand  over,  free  of  charge,  a  warrant  with  the 
same  judicial  force  as  the  Imperial  firman,  and  issued  by  a  competent  authority, 
to  mining  concessionaires  whose  concessions  were  signed  before  the  outbreak  of 
hostilities  but  not  confirmed  by  firman  until  after  the  declaration  of  war.  This 
same  succession  by  right  applies  to  forest  and  port  concessions. 

There  are  still  a  number  of  important  problems  to  be  solved.     They  concern : 

1.  The  position  of  companies  whose  workings  will  in  future  lie  within 
two  or  more  territories,  such  as  the  lighthouse  company,  road  and  railway 
construction  companies,  etc. 

2.  The  determination  of  the  distribution  of  mileage  securities,  the  cal- 
culation of  receipts,  and  the  share  thereof  accruing  to  the  different  govern- 
ments, and  the  charges  on  the  said  share. 

Probably  a  permanent  Liquidation  Committee  will  be  instituted  in  succession 
to  the  Financial  Committee  to  ensure  detailed  application  of  the  principles  it 
has  laid  down ;  while  an  Arbitration  Tribunal,  international  in  character,  will  be 
set  up  for  the  final  adjudication  of  matters  in  dispute. 

In  the  territories  ceded  to  the  Balkan  States  the  Imperial  Ottoman  govern- 
ment had  conceded  the  construction  and  working  of  eleven  lines  of  railway,  of 
five  ports  (Salonica,  Dede-Agatch,  Kavala,  St.  Jean  de  Medua,  Goumenitza),  of 
high  roads,  hydraulic  works  (Maritza,  Boyana,  Okhrida).  Sixty-three  mines 
had  been  conceded.  The  nationality  of  the  concessionaires  was  as  follows : 

Ottoman    37 

British     10 

French    1 

French    and    Austrian     3 

Ottoman   and   Hellenic    2 

Italian 6 

German 1 

Ottoman,  French,  Italian   1 

Ottoman  and  Austrian   2 

The  Ottoman  State  had  passed  sixteen  contracts  for  the  lease  of  forests  to 
nine  entrepreneurs. 

There  were,  moreover,  a  certain  number  of  tramway,  lighting,  motive 
power,  hydraulic  power,  and  mineral  water  concessions  outstanding,  permits  for 
mining  and  quarry  exploitation,  and  a  large  number  of  contracts  for  the  con- 
struction of  roads,  public  buildings  and  other  works  of  public  utility  and  for 
forest  workings  which  had  been  made  either  by  the  central  government  or  by 
local  authorities. 

The  Balkan  wars  simply  emptied  the  factories  and  fields  of  their  male 
workers.  Out  of  2,632,000  inhabitants,  Greece  mobilized  210,000  men ;  Bulgaria 
620,567  out  of  its  4,329,108  inhabitants;  and  Servia  467,630  men  out  of  2,945,950 
inhabitants.  The  result  was  a  considerable  deficit  in  the  taxes  collected,  a  falling; 


260  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

off  in  the  state  receipts.  We  will  quote  the  example  of  only  one  country,  Servia, 
the  same  phenomenon  having  occurred  to  the  same  extent  in  the  other  belligerent 
countries.  Servia  experienced  the  following  variations  in  its  monetary  resources. 
Taxation  produced  2,879.577  dinars  in  the  month  of  October,  1913,  against  591,315 
in  the  corresponding  period  of  1912,  and  5,817,493  in  1911;  that  is,  an  increase 
in  1913,  of  2,188,251  dinars  on  the  results  for  1912. 

In  the  first  ten  months  of  the  year  1913,  taxation,  which  had  brought  in 
33,911,817  dinars  in  1911,  and  24,443,984  dinars  in  1912,  only  brought  in 
10,623,800  dinars.  The  decrease  of  13,820,184  dinars  between  the  figures  for 
1913;  and  those  for  the  year  before,  is  explained  by  the  peculiar  circumstances. 
In  1912,  the  taxes  were  in  fact  regularly  paid  for  the  first  nine  months,  whereas 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  corresponding  period  of  1913,  Servia  was  in  a 
state  of  war. 

Then,  too,  war,  besides  depriving  States  of  their  ordinary  receipts,  causes 
heavy  expenditure  on  armaments,  ammunition  and  equipment;  the  Balkan  States 
estimated  this  expenditure  as  follows: 

Bulgaria 

Expenditure  on  the  army fr.     824,782,012 

Pensions  and  Maintenance  of  prisoners  of  war 487,863,436 

Total fr.  1,312,645,448 

Greece 

Expenditure  on  the  army fr.  317,816,101 

Expenditure  on  the  navy 75,341,913 

Pensions    54,000,000 

Maintenance  of  prisoners  of  war 20,000,000 


Total fr.  467,158,014 

Montenegro 

Expenditure  on  the  army fr.  100,631,100 

Maintenance  of  prisoners  of  war 2,500,000 


Total    fr.  103,131,100 

Servia 

Expenditure  on  the  army fr.  574,815,500 

Maintenance  of  prisoners 16,000,000 


Total fr.     590,815,500 

Are  these  figures  to  be  regarded  as  exact?  They  are  evidently  open  to  the 
suspicion  of  being  exaggerated.  They  were  supplied  by  the  belligerent  States 
to  the  Financial  Commission  as  a  basis  of  the  claims  to  be  formulated  and  in- 


ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS  261 

demnity  or  compensation  awarded  against  the  defeated  Turk.  As  one  of  the 
ministers  whom  we  saw  told  us.  the  States  "pleaded"  before  the  Commission. 
The  case  is  not  yet  decided.  But  there  is  already  more  moderation  about  the 
corrected  figures  furnished  by  some  States.  Thus  in  a  document  sent  us  by  the 
secretary  general  to  the  Servian  Foreign  Minister  (Appendix  I)  the  total 
of  the  various  heads  under  which  war  expenditure  is  classified  amounts  to  but 
fr.  445,880,858,  a  reduction  of  fr.  128,934,642  on  the  total  sent  in  to  the  Finance 
Commission. 

In  the  absence  of  documents  it  is  to  be  presumed  that  Montenegro  can  not 
have,  spent  fr.  103,000.000,  even  if  its  reserves  were  exhausted,  its  allies  and 
friends  called  in  and  everything  possible  in  the  Country  requisitioned. 

.  After  this  comment  we  may  ask  how  the  hundreds  of  millions  consumed  by 
the  war  have  been  or  are  to  be  paid  ?  The  belligerents  have  depleted  their  treas- 
uries. They  will  seek  to  get  what  is  necessary  by  means  of  loans.  At  home 
they  will  convert  the  requisition  bonds  into  government  stock.  In  Bulgaria 
three  hundred  millions  of  those  bonds  are  in  circulation;  a  third  will  be  paid  up 
and  the  rest  consolidated.  But  for  the  greater  part  of  the  bill  appeal  will  be 
made  to  European  financiers.  The  result  will  t>e'a  considerable  increase  in  the 
public  debt  of  the  Balkan  States. 

On  June  1,  1913,  the  Hellenic  government  made  an  attempt  to  justify  the 
sums  at  which  its  expenditure  on  army  and  navy  had  been  valued;  i.  e., 
fr.  393,158,014,  and  estimated  that  of  this  total  fr.  119,598,213  was  outstanding 
debt,  which  would  make  its  real  cash  expenditure  fr.  273,559,801. 

What  were  the  resources  available  to  meet  such  a  heavy  expenditure?  On 
the  eve  of  the  war  the  treasury  contained  f r.  122,856,768  of  gold  drawn  from  the 
following  sources : 

Available  balance  from  the  1910  loan fr.  73,537,941 

Budget  surplus  from  1910  and  1911 19,318,827 

Postponed  expenditure  on  the  1912  and  1913 
budgets  and  funds  used  provisionally, 
about  .  30,000,000 


Total .. .   fr.  122,856,768 

After  the  declaration  of  war  Greece  acquired  resources  as  follows: 

Treasury  bonds  discounted  by  the  Greek  Na- 
tional Bank  f  r.  10,000,000 

Advance  arranged  in  Paris,  December,  1912..  40,000,000 

Advance  arranged  with  the  Greek  National 

Bank,  April,  1913 50,000,000 

Advance  arranged  with  the  same,  May,  1913. .  40,000,000 


Total  .  fr.  140,000,000 


262  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

The  grand  total  then  of  the  sums  contained  in  the  treasury  and  obtained 
by  a  series  of  financial  operations,  amounts  to  fr.  262,856,768. 

The  treasury  possessed  on  June,  1913,  some  fr.  12,000,000.  It  spent 
fr.  250,856,768,  a  sum  which  with  the  addition  of  the  debt  outstanding,  prac- 
tically corresponds  to  the  total  returned  expenditure.  There  thus  remain 
fr.  119,398,213  of  expenditure  not  yet  settled,  and  the  pensions  and  repairs  of 
armaments,  etc.  There  is  also  the  organization  of  new  territories  to  be  provided 
for,  and  which  for  a  considerable  time  will  bring  in  nothing  in  the  way  of  re- 
ceipts. Finally,  the  receipts  for  1912  and  1913  being  markedly  diminished  by 
the  war,  there  is  sure  to  be  a  deficit  from  these  two  sources. 

Thus  one  may  conclude,  from  figures  furnished  by  Greece  herself,  that  the 
State  debt,  amounting  to  fr.  994,000.000  on  January  1,  1913,  will  be  augmented, 
as  the  result  of  the  increased  expenditure  and  diminished  budget  receipts  due  to 
the  war,  by  some  fr.  500,000,000,  which  will  produce  by  way  of  interest  and 
sinking  fund  an  annual  charge  on  the  budget  of  fr.  35,000,000  to  pay  for  the 
expenses  of  the  war.  That  is  to  say  the  sum,  fr.  37,650,712,  actually  required 
for  debt,  according  to  the  1913  budget,  will  be  almost  doubled. 

The  effect  of  war  expenses  on  public  finance  in  Bulgaria  was  put  as  follow? 
by  the  delegates  before  the  Finance  Commission  on  July  2: 

Part  of  the  expense  incurred  by  the  Bulgarian  treasury  during  the  war 
has  already  affected  the  public  debt.  On  September  1  last  the  consolidated 
debt,  consisting  of  the  6  per  cent  loan  of  1892,  5  per  cent  of  1902  and  1904, 
4}^  per  cent  of  1907  and  1909,  4^4  per  cent  of  1909,  amounted  to 
fr.  627,782,962.  The  floating  debt  amounted  to  close  upon  fr.  60,000,000, 
i.  e.,  fr.  32,875,775  to  the  National  Bank  of  Bulgaria,  fr.  2,040,398  to  the 
Banque  Agricole,  and  fr.  25,000,000  of  treasury  bonds.  The  total 
Bulgarian  debt  consequently  amounted  to  fr.  687,699,135  before  the  war. 
It  has  since  risen  by  about  fr.  395,000,000.  The  situation  on  May  1,  1913, 
was  as  follows: 

Consolidated  debt fr.  623,635,206  . 

Floating  debt  to  the  National  Bank 60,625,398 

Debt  to  the  Banque  Agricola 313,583 

Treasury  bonds 125,829,000 

Treasury  bonds   (requisition  bonds) 249,815,300 

Excess  over  from  previous  statements 23,071,304 


Total fr.  1,083,289,791 

The  consolidated  debt  has  been  reduced  by  the  normal  operation  of -the 
sinking  fund,  by  a  little  over  four  millions.  The  advances  made  by  the 
National  Bank  of  Bulgaria  have  almost  doubled.  Treasury  bonds  to  the 
value  of  125. millions  have  been  issued  abroad.  Finally,  the  major  part  of 
the  expenses  of  the  war  have  been  met  by  the  issue  of  requisition  bonds. 


ECONOMIC    RESULTS    OF    THE    WARS  263 

From  the  beginning  of  the  war  down  to  May  1,  Bulgaria  spent  rather 
over  fr.  400,000,000  and  increased  its  debt  by  fr.  395,590,737.  Let  us  hasten 
to  add  that  this  sum  is  far  from  representing  the  real  cost  of  the  war. 
Sums  incurred  and  not  yet  met  are  not  included.  The  indirect  expenses, 
above  all,  of  recreating  materiel  and  commissariat,  paying  pensions  to  the 
wounded  and  to  the  families  of  the  dead  soldiers,  which  would  more  than 
double  the  total  400,000,000,  are  not  included. 

The  total,  further,  does  not  include  the  losses  to  the  Bulgarian  treasury 
involved  in  the  diminution  of  receipts  and  economic  and  other  losses. 

The  Servian  public  debt,  which  was  659  million  francs,  has  also  been  heavily 
swollen, — by  about  500  millions. 

Territorial  conquest  imposes  obligations  on  the  conquerors  which  must 
aggravate  their  financial  position.  Moreover,  Servia's  new  territories  must  be 
organized,  equipped  with  administrative  .machinery  and  officials,  reforms  must 
be  introduced,  industrial  arrangements  improved,  railways  laid,  and  the  army 
increased.  The  Turkish  debt  which  weighs  on  them  must  be  cleared  off. 

The  Financial  Commission  made  an  estimate  of  the  share  of  the  Ottoman 
debt  accruing  to  the  Balkan  States  in  return  for  their  annexations. 

Three  systems  of  distribution  were  suggested.  Only  those  figures  need  be 
given  which  show  that  the  share  of  nominal  capital  in  the  loans  and  advances 
of  the  Ottoman  government  in  circulation  at  the  end  of  the  war,  transferred  to 
the  Balkan  States,  will  amount  to  between  twenty-three  and  twenty-four  million 
Turkish  pounds,  or  575  to  600  million  francs. 

It  is  not  easy  to  foretell  what  economic  alterations  will  be  effected  in  the 
country  by  the  new  distribution  of  territory,  which  regions  will  benefit  and  which 
suffer  by  the  change.  Greece,  which  has  been  isolated,  as  its  railways  did  not 
form  part  of  the  European  system,  is  thinking  of  changing  this  state  of  things, 
which  is  harmful  to  its  development. 

The  breaking  up  of  Macedonia  will  alter  the  position  of  the  trade  centers, 
which  each  government  will  place  in  the  middle  of  its  own  territory.  This  will 
certainly  be  to  the  detriment  of  Salonica,  whose  commercial  hinterland  is  inter- 
sected by  the  new  frontiers.  In  November,  1913,  the  receipts  of  the  custom 
house  of  Ghevgheli  on  the  Servian-Greek  frontier  amounted  to  600,000  dinars. 
When  Servia  has  organized  its  new  territory,  the  Ghevgheli  custom  house  will 
in  all  probability  be  an  obstacle  to  trade  with  Salonica. 

The  events  of  the  Balkan  war  reacted  upon  Austria  Hungary  and  Russia. 
Before  and  during  the  period  of  crisis  these  two  States  held  themselves  in  readi- 
ness for  any  eventuality  and  remained  partially  mobilized  for  several  months. 
These  preparations  must  have  cost  Austria  Hungary  alone  some  thousand  mil- 
lion crowns. 

Roumania  also  mobilized  and  invaded  Bulgaria  at  the  moment  when  Bulgaria 
stood  opposed  to  the  Greek,  Servian  and  Turkish  armies.  But  as  the  price  of 
this  intervention,  which  was  absolutely  without  danger,  Roumania  received  a 


264  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

rich  territory  equal  to  a  twelfth  of  the  whole  area  of  Bulgaria,  and  paying  in 
thirty  to  thirty-two  million  francs  worth  in  taxation  annually  to  the  Bulgarian 
Exchequer.  So  she  was  amply  repaid. 

,  As  soon  as  peace  was  concluded,  the  belligerent  States  set  in  search  of 
money.  Servia  first  took  steps  to  obtain  the  millions  needed  to  repair  its  losses 
and  realize  its  conquest,  from  the  international  finance  market.  The  Skupshtina 
voted  a  projected  loan  of  250  million  dinars,  half  to  cover  the  cost  of  the  war,  the 
other  half  to  go  in  subventions  to  agriculture,  especially  in  the  provinces  ot 
New  Servia. 

Bulgaria  and  Greece  are  also  looking  for  the  necessary  millions.  Turkey 
the  same.  A  thousand  millions  of  francs  (£40,000,000)  is  an  inside  estimate  of 
what  the  Balkan  States  want  from  the  savings  of  Europe.  The  capital  will  be 
supplied  them  by  loan  establishments,  controlled,  however,  clearly,  by  the  gov- 
ernments of  the  countries  where  the  shares  are  issued  and  taken  up. 

It  is  right  and  proper  that  government  should  make  the  pecuniary  aid  thus 
afforded  to  the  Balkan  nations  subject  to  certain  considerations  of  general  in- 
terest. It  is  the  duty  of  governments  which  allow  millions  to  be  borrowed  from 
the  savings  of  their  people  to  see  that  conditions  are  imposed  salutary  to  bor- 
rowers and  lenders.  The  wealth  lent  must  go  to  increase  industrial  and  agricul- 
tural values  above  their  present  level ;  unproductive  and  dangerous  trade  must 
be  limited.  In  a  word,  governmental  intervention  should  take  the  form  of  re- 
fusing to  authorize  a  loan  unless  the  borrowing  nations  guarantee  to  restrict 
their  armaments  within  definite  limits.  European  governments  which  really  care 
for  pea£e,  ought  to  use  this  powerful  argument. 

Finally,  the  Balkan  States,  immediately  after  the  war,  took  up  the  position 
of  conquerors ;  in  Belgrade,  in  Athens  and  in  Sofia,  the  sovereign  and  the  troops 
made  triumphal  entries. 

Today,  the  Balkan  States  are  acting  as  beggars.  They  are  seeking  to  borrow 
money  to  pay  their  debts  and  build  up  again  their  military  and  productive  forces. 

Such  is  the  result  of  the  war.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of  deaths,  soldiers 
crippled,  ruin,  suffering,  hatred  and,  to  crown  all,  misery  and  poverty  after  vic- 
tory. War  results  in  destruction  and  poverty  in  every  direction. 


CHAPTER    VII 


The  Moral  and  Social  Consequences  of  the  Wars  and  the  Outlook 
for  the  Future  of  Macedonia 

In  the  first  war  there  was  much  of  that  cheerful  response  to  the  call  to  arms, 
that  fearlessness  and  that  heroism  which  have  been  sung  by  poets  in  all  time, 
and  which  the  world  has  ever  approved.  Centuries  of  oppression  and  suffering 
at  the  hands  of  the  Turks,  the  unpromising  outlook  for  good  government  in 
Macedonia  because  of  hostile  factions  in  the  Turkish  government,  and  the 
possibility  of  the  alliance  of  Greece,  Servia,  and  Bulgaria  in  what  seemed  a 
just  and  holy  cause,  were  felt  to  fully  justify  the  concerted  movement  against 
the  Turks.  The  peasants  who  cheerfully  left  their  homes  and  their  families, 
while  the  government  took  their  animals  and  their  carts  for  purposes  of  trans- 
portation, went  forth  in  a  glow  of  national  feeling  and  patriotism  not  unmixed 
with  the  thought  of  liberating  their  brothers  in  Macedonia.  Though  the  instincts 
and  motives  which  inspired  them  were  primitive,  they  were  nevertheless  real  and 
genuine  and  belonged  to  that  class  of  better  human  traits  which  war  is  believed 
by  many  to  call  forth. 

From  first  to  last,  in  both  wars,  the  fighting  was  as  desperate  as  though 
extermination  were  the  end  sought.  However  glorious  the  public  accounts 
appeared,  the  Turkish  war  and  the  war  of  the  Allies  constituted  a  ghastly  chapter 
of  horrors.  Both  among  the  regular  troops  as  well  as  the  irregular  bands  which 
accompanied  the  armies,  there  were  many  of  low,  criminal,  and  even  bestial  type, 
with  no  human  feeling  and  no  care  for  civilized  standards,  who  were  ready  at 
all  times  to  do  atrocious  deeds;  and  the  history  of  the  first  war,  however  lofty 
in  purpose  it  may  have  been,  is  tarnished  by  many  burnings,  slayings,  and  viola- 
tions for  which  no  possible  excuse  can  be  given.  There  is  evidence  to  show  that 
in  some  cases  these  acts  were  committed  by  soldiers  acting  under  orders.  It  is 
to  be  feared  that  many  a  young  man  learned  for  the  first  time  to  commit  acts 
of  violence  and  crime  not  permitted  in  civilized  warfare. 

We  have  to  do  with  the  second  war  chiefly,  and  it  is  here  that  moral  results 
and  consequences  are  the  most  terrible.  The  nations  which  had  been  in  alliance 
and  had  invoked  the  aid  of  Heaven  in  a  war  of  deliverance  suddenly  awoke  to 
fierce  hatred  of  each  other.  National  jealousy  and  bitterness,  greed  for  terri- 
torial expansion,  and  mutual  distrust,  were  sufficient  to  initiate  and  push  forward 
the  most  uncalled  for  and  brutal  war  of  modern  times.  Those  who  fought  side 


266  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

by  side  at  Tchataldja  and  Adrianople  were  now  ready  to  kill,  mutilate,  and  to 
torture  each  other. 

To  the  man  who  sits  at  home,  or  to  the  casual  observer,  war  assumes  a 
certain  glamor.  It  seems  to  be  the  open  door  to  glory  and  renown.  The  Com- 
mission witnessed  at  Belgrade,  at  the  close  of  the  second  war,  the  return  of  some 
of  the  crack  Servian  regiments  and  the  celebration  of  the  victories,  with  proces- 
sions of  soldiers,  triumphal  arches,  banners,  flowers,  and  music.  The  King, 
Crown  Prince,  distinguished  officers  and  the  populace  all  entered  into  the  spirit 
of  a  grand  holiday.  Similar  scenes  were  enacted  at  Sofia,  Salonica,  Athens,  and 
Bucharest.  It  would  be  difficult  to  say  which  caused  the  greater  joy, — the  vic- 
tories over  the  Turks  or  those  over  their  former  allies,  the  Bulgarians.  In  the 
speeches  made  on  these  occasions  there  was,  we  venture  to  say,  little  mention 
made  of  the  fact  that  nearly  one  hundred  thousand  young  men,  more  or  less, 
were  lost  to  the  nation,  either  through  death,  wounds,  sickness,  or  massacres. 
The  mothers  and  sisters  of  the  lost  soldiers  who,  in  mourning  dress,  were  scat- 
tered numerously  through  the  crowds,  received,  we  venture  to  say,  little  public 
notice.  Each  of  the  three  nations  which  fought,  and  Roumania,  who  seized  an 
auspicious  moment  to  steal  a  choice  piece  of  her  neighbor's  territory  and  force 
her  to  sign  a  treaty  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  posed  before  the  world  as  those 
that  had  defended  a  righteous  cause. 

We  also  saw  the  demobilization  of  the  Servian  troops,  for  we  met  in  our 
slow  journey  of  two  days  from  Belgrade  to  Uskub  more  than  thirty  military 
trains  loaded  with  men,  horses,  oxen,  carts,  cannon,  equipage,  and,  I  fear,  much 
property  unlawfully  taken  from  the  homes  and  shops  of  noncombatants. 
Often  the  railway  carriages  were  decorated  with  flowers  or  branches  of  trees. 
Now  and  then  one  could  hear  patriotic  songs.  Thus  the  going  and  returning  of 
the  soldiers  was  attended  with  patriotic  ardor  and  joy.  This  is  the  brighter 
side  of  the  picture;  but  it  is  the  reverse  side,  so  dark  and  sinister,  which  we  are 
compelled  to  examine.  Upon  this  picture  only  one  ray  of  light  seems  to  fall. 

We  visited  the  great  military  hospitals  at  Belgrade  and  Sofia  and  the  smaller 
Greek  hospital  at  Drama.  In  the  midst  of  maimed,  sore,  and  suffering  humanity 
devoted  women,  some  of  them  from  other  lands,  some  persons  of  high  sta- 
tion— for  example,  the  wives  of  the  Servian  minister  in  London  and  the  Greek 
minister  at  Athens,  both  of  American  birth,  and  Queen  Eleonora  of  Bulgaria — 
were  ministering  patiently  and  sympathetically,  not  only  to  those  who  were 
recovering,  but  to  the  dying  as  well,  and  in  all  cases  there  were  a  few,  a  very  few, 
of  the  enemy  receiving  apparently  the  same  care  as  the  others.  We  heard  also 
of  instances  of  self  denial  and  magnanimity  on  the  battle  field,  and  we  wished 
that  there  had  been  more  of  them. 

In  considering  the  moral  effects  of  the  atrocities  which  have  already  been 
so  fully  described,  we  must  take  account  of  the  sufferers  as  well  as  those  guilty 
of  committing  them.  When  a  band  of  soldiers  or  comitadjis,  either  under 


MORAL   AND   SOCIAL    CONSEQUENCES   OF   THE   WARS  267 

orders  or,  as  was  many  times  the  case,  under  the  impulse  of  hatred,  greed,  and 
lust,  surrounded  and  attacked  a  village,  the  very  doors  of  Hell  seemed  to  be 
opened.  No  language  can  describe  the  tortures  and  griefs  which  followed.  Re- 
peated instances  of  death  by  fright  of  girls  and  young  children  attest  the  horror 
of  the  orgy  of  crime  which  was  enacted.  In  one  house  in  Doxato,  to  which  fifty 
persons  had  fled  for  safety,  all  but  one  little  girl,  Chrisanthe  Andom,  were 
slaughtered  like  beasts  in  the  shambles.  In  the  same  town  a  well  to  do  family 
of  thirteen  owned  and  occupied  one  of  the  best  houses.  After  extorting  £3,000 
from  the  head  of  the  family  on  the  promise  that  they  would  be  spared,  the  Bul- 
garians and  Turks  proceeded  to  kill  them  all.  These  are  typical  instances  of 
the  many  which  are  found  in  the  depositions  contained  in  the  appendices.  Can 
we  estimate  the  moral  effects  of  such  atrocities  upon  the  survivors?  They  are 
often  stunned  by  the  enormity  of  their  losses.  Despair  is  written  on  their  faces. 
This  was  true  of  a  Bulgarian  and  his  wife  in  the  village  of  Voinitsa.  They 
stood  beside  a  wretched  shack  in  which  they  were  trying  to  live,  while  a  few 
meters  away  were  the  ruins  of  their  once  attractive  home,  which  contained  the 
savings  of  a  lifetime,  and  which  the  Servians  had  destroyed.  Widespread  and 
almost  universal  maltreatment  of  women  and  girls  by  the  soldiers  of  the  three 
nations  has  left  behind  moral  consequences  which  can  not  be  estimated. 

But  what  shall  we  say  of  the  reflex  influence  upon  the  perpetrators?  When 
before,  in  modern  times,  have  troops  been  commanded  by  their  officers  to  commit 
atrocities?  That  this  was  done  is  shown  by  letters  of  Greek  soldiers  captured 
by  the  Bulgarians  and  copies  of  which  are  to  be  seen  in  Appendix  C.  Greek 
officers  on  the  other  hand  claim  to  have  captured  evidence  that  Bulgarian  com- 
manders were  guilty  of  permitting  and  directing  atrocities  in  Greek  towns.  The 
moral  effect  upon  hundreds  and  thousands  of  young  men,  who  either  participated 
in  or  were  cognizant  of  these  crimes  officially  sanctioned,  can  not  easily  be 
effaced.  Acting  upon  a  people  who  have  not  obtained  the  stability  of  character 
found  in  older  civilizations,  the  moral  loss  is  irretrievable. 

To  this  list  of  primary  consequences  must  be  added  the  long  series  of 
reports  and  instances  of  torturing,  mutilating,  and  slaying  of  wounded  soldiers 
collected  by  the  Foreign  Office  at  Belgrade,  each  report  containing  the  names 
of  the  victims,  the  name  of  the  person  making  the  report,  and  properly  attested 
by  the  commanding  officer.  Then  there  are  instances  of  ill  treatment  of  pris- 
oners, especially  of  Turks  by  Bulgarians  and  of  Bulgarians  by  the  Servians  and 
Greeks.  No  less  serious  were  the  sufferings  of  Turkish  refugees,  more  than 
200,000  in  number,  who  were  either  driven  out  by  the  Greeks  or  who,  from  fear 
of  the  Bulgars,  fled  from  the  territories  about  to  be  occupied  by  them.  We 
saw  thousands  of  those  refugees  in  and  near  Salonica,  and  thousands  more  at 
Drama  and  Kavala.  They  were  always  a  pitiful  sight,  camping  as  they  were 
on  the  open  ground,  without  shelter,  the  children  often  being  nearly  naked,  with 
winter  approaching,  and  not  knowing  where  they  would  find  a  home  and  safety. 


268  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN   COMMISSION 

They  had  left  their  farms  and  their  crops,  taking  with  them  only  some  animals, 
which  were  often  stolen  from  them,  or  which  they  were  compelled  to  sell  for  a 
mere  pittance.  We  saw  some  of  them  embarking  on  steamers  for  Asia  Minor, 
where  it  is  to  be  feared  that  many  will  die  from  hunger  and  exposure  the  coming 
winter.  More  than  135,000  Bulgarians  were  fugitives  from  territory  newly 
occupied  by  the  Greeks.  This  list  includes  priests,  schoolmasters,  and  leading 
citizens  whose  interests  and  sympathies  are  known  to  be  Bulgarian. 

It  is  sufficient  to  refer  to  what  has  already  been  said  about  nationalities. 
There  could  be  no  more  appealing  picture  of  moral  and  social  confusion  than 
that  of  metropolitan  bishops,  schoolmasters,  and  notables  who  have  been  arrested, 
maltreated,  and  imprisoned  without  due  process  of  law.  If  permitted  to  live, 
they  were  driven  from  their  homes  and  compelled  to  leave  behind  the  churches 
and  schools  which  they  had  cherished,  as  well  as  the  property  belonging  thereto 
or  to  them  personally.  Often  they  were  prevented  from  communicating  with 
their  families  before  they  were  driven  away.  These  supreme  acts  of  intolerance 
on  the  part  of  Greece  and  Servia  toward  educational  institutions,  which  had  long 
been  a  saving  grace  in  Macedonia,  may  find  some  defense  in  the  militant  nature 
of  the  national  propaganda  which  priests  and  schoolmasters  carried  on ;  but  such 
coercion  and  ill  treatment  employed  by  one  set  of  Christians  against  another,  all 
adherents  of  the  same  orthodox  church,  can  not  hope  to  escape  the  censure  of 
the  civilized  world.  They  were  fiendish,  both  in  their  conception  and  in  their 
execution,  and  were  appropriate  only  to  the  times  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition. 

Statistics  showing  the  number  of  Bulgarian,  Servian,  and  Greek  schools  and 
teachers  in  Macedonia  before  the  new  alignment  of  territory  are  impressive,  as 
showing  Bulgarian  enterprise  in  education,  and  in  suggesting  the  vast  moral  and 
social  harm  which  is  wrought  in  their  destruction.  Here  again  the  moral  conse- 
quences are  far  reaching,  for  they  affect  60,000  pupils  and  1,600  teachers  and  strike 
a  blow  at  the  educational  and  social  advancement  of  the  communities  involved. 
They  also  convict  the  Greeks  and  Servians  of  mal-administration  and  intolerance 
at  the  very  beginning  of  their  avowed  work  of  reconstruction.  Recalling  that 
under  the  Turks  there  had  been  a  high  degree  of  liberty  in  education  and  worship, 
is  it  strange  that  large  populations  are  now  wishing  that  the  Turks  were  again  in 
control?  In  some  respects,  at  least,  war  for  the  deliverance  of  Macedonia  has 
brought  to  the  people  of  that  country  a  new  set  of  sufferings  and  trials.  The  vice- 
rector  of  a  Real  Gymnasium  in  Salonica,  attended  and  supported  by  Bulgarians, 
told  one  of  the  Commission  of  his  own  experience.  After  twenty  years  of 
service  as  director  of  science  in  that  institution,  during  which  time  he  had  organ- 
ized physical,  chemical,  and  zoological  laboratories  equal,  if  not  superior,  to  any 
others  in  that  region,  he  had  been  compelled  to  see  his  work  utterly  destroyed. 
Standing  in  the  street  a  few*  days  before,  he  had  witnessed  the  systematic  looting 
of  the  entire  building  by  soldiers  and  others,  and  the  destruction  of  whatever 
was  not  carried  away. 


MORAL   AND    SOCIAL   CONSEQUENCES   OF   THE   WARS  269 

A  daily  journal  called  The  Independent,  published  in  Salonica,  in  its  issue 
of  September  4,  publishes  an  interview  with  Mr.  Tsirimocos,  the  Greek  Minister 
of  Public  Instruction  and  Culture,  in  which  he  sets  forth  elaborate  plans  for 
primary  and  secondary  education  in  Macedonia.  No  mention,  however,  is  made 
of  the  schools  which  have  been  destroyed  and  of  the  hundreds  of  teachers  who 
have  been  driven  away  or  of  his  plans  for  filling  their  places. 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  reflex  psychological  effect  of  these 
crimes  against  justice  and  humanity.  The  matter  becomes  serious  when  we 
think  of  it  as  something  which  the  nations  have  absorbed  into  their  very  life, — a 
sort  of  virus  which,  through  the  ordinary  channels  of  circulation,  has  infected 
the  entire  body  politic.  Here  we  can  focus  the  whole  matter, — the  fearful 
economic  waste,  the  untimely  death  of  no  small  part  of  the  population,  a  volume 
of  terror  and  pain  which  can  be  only  partially,  at  least,  conceived  and  estimated, 
and  the  collective  national  consciousness  of  greater  crimes  than  history  has 
recorded.  This  is  a  fearful  legacy  to  be  left  to  future  generations.  If  we  look 
for  palliating  causes  of  these  gross  lapses  from  humanity  and  law,  we  must  find 
them  in  the  extreme  youth  of  these  nations,  the  immaturity  of  national  and  civic 
character,  as  well  as  in  the  conditions  which  have  beset  them  during  their  long 
period  of  vassalage.  Life  was  cheap;  nothing  was  absolutely  safe  or  sure; 
deeds  of  injustice  and  violence  were  common  facts  in  their  daily  lives;  and  danger 
of  some  kind  or  other  was  generally  imminent.  Events,  however  revolting,  are 
soon  forgotten  by  the  outside  world  and  it  is  in  the  inner  consciousness  of  moral 
deterioration  and  in  the  loss  of  self  respect  that  the  nations  will  chiefly  suffer. 

There  is  one  other  fact,  partly  economic  but  distinctly  social,  which  should 
not  be  overlooked.  Including  Turks,  upward  of  a  million  and  a  half  of  men 
have  been  under  arms  during  the  past  year.  For  those  who  have  been  demo- 
bilized and  have  returned  to  their  homes  and  vocations  there  is  little  to  be  said 
in  this  connection,  but  to  the  large  contingents  which  are  kept  in  the  service, 
composed  mostly  of  young  men,  there  is  a  probability  of  permanent  harm.  To 
be  withdrawn  from  useful  productive  labor  is  bad  enough;  but  life  in  the  bar- 
racks, with  much  idleness  in  the  streets  of  cities  and  large  towns,  is  sure  to  be 
demoralizing  and  harmful.  The  Commission  in  its  wanderings  seemed  every- 
where to  be  enveloped  by  soldiers,  who  went  to  increase  the  number,  already 
large,  of  those  who  thronged  the  cafes  and  places  of  amusement.  War  causes 
many  kinds  of  human  waste  and  this  is  one  of  them.  The  life  of  the  recruits 
who  are  kept  in  service  under  present  conditions  in  the  Balkan  States  is  unnat- 
ural and  not  favorable  to  moral  growth. 

The  next  portion  of  our  inquiry  relates  to  present  social  conditions  in  these 
countries  and  the  future  prospects  for  Macedonia.  To  what  extent  have  Greece, 
Servia,  and  Bulgaria  shown  themselves  competent  to  administer  their  new 
domains?  What  are  the  guaranties  of  their  future  growth  in  good  government 
and  the  arts  of  civilized  life?  Each  nation  is  working  out  its  destiny  under  a 


270  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

constitutional  government  in  which  the  people  are  duly  represented.  While  there 
is  a  certain  instability  caused  by  the  number  of  political  parties,  there  is  the 
free  play  of  popular  will  and  opinion.  Undoubtedly  the  most  promising  safe- 
guards and  the  most  important  means  of  progress  are  found  in  the  systems  of 
education  which  the  several  nations  have  established.  Each  has  its  university, 
technical,  secondary  and  primary  schools,  and  all  have  taken  steps  to  organize  all 
of  these  forms  of  special  education  which  are  considered  essential  in  modern 
times.  Greece,  by  reason  of  her  longer  period  of  independence,  has  been  able 
to  extend  and  broaden  her  system  and  to  connect  it  somewhat  with  the  economic 
interests  of  the  people.  For  example,  she  has  a  good  number  of  agricultural 
schools  distributed  in  her  several  provinces.  Servia  has  also  shown  worthy 
attempts  to  make  her  schools  of  social  importance  through  the  study  of  agricul- 
ture and  domestic  economy.  The  fact  that  not  more  than  seventeen  per  cent  of  the 
people  of  Servia  can  read  and  write  indicates,  however,  that  the  system  has  not 
been  efficiently  applied  so  far  as  the  elements  of  education  are  concerned.  As 
•one  friend  of  the  nation  has  expressed  it,  "Education  in  Servia  is  strong  at  the 
top  and  weak  at  the  bottom." 

Bulgaria,  in  her  thirty-four  years  of  independent  existence,  has  made  rapid 
progress  in  organizing  an  efficient  school  system.  The  reduction  of  illiteracy  in 
Bulgaria  has  proceeded  so  rapidly  during  the  last  ten  years  that  it  is  possible 
to  predict  that  before  many  years  the  people  will  all  substantially  be  able  to  read 
and  write.  Similar  results  may  properly  be  expected  in  Greece.  Bulgaria  is  con- 
siderably in  advance  of  her  neighbors  in  the  relative  number  of  schools  and  teach- 
ers provided,  in  the  literacy  of  both  males  and  females  in  the  entire  population,  in 
the  number  of  recruits  who  can  read  and  write,  and  in  the  provision  for  secondary 
education.  But  the  efficiency  of  school  systems  can  not  be  judged  by  statistics 
alone;  it  is  necessary  to  inquire  concerning  the  results  of  education  as  seen  in 
the  social  and  economic  life  of  the  people.  We  may  properly  ask  whether  edu- 
cation has  been  effective  in  improving  healthfulness,  thrift  and  good  taste  as 
seen  in  the  homes;  in  modernizing  commercial  and  industrial  methods;  and  in 
raising  standards  of  public  health  and  sanitation. 

In  the  capital  cities,  especially  in  Sofia,  Athens,  and  to  some  extent  Belgrade, 
we  see  well  paved  streets,  a  system  of  public  water,  partially  constructed  sewers, 
and  many  indications  of  civic  enterprise.  The  beginnings  in  these  directions  are 
found  also  in  some  of  the  large  towns;  but  in  the  villages,  in  which  dwell  the 
majority  of  the  people,  there  is  still  a  large  amount  of  squalor,  dirt,  and  con- 
fusion, which  have  been  transmitted  through  the  centuries  with  little  change. 
There  is  too  much  complacency  on  the  part  of  officials,  too  low  a  standard  of 
human  comfort  and  welfare  among  the  masses.  This  conservatism  and  back- 
wardness whereby  the  people  cling  to  the  methods  of  their  ancestors,  can  only 
be  overcome  by  more  vigorous  methods  of  social  education  than  have  yet  been 
-applied.  Every  schoolmaster  and  every  schoolmistress  should  become  a  working 
.agent  for  social  regeneration,  not  only  in  the  old  sections  of  these  States,  but 


MORAL   AND    SOCIAL    CONSEQUENCES   OF   THE    WARS  271 

especially  in  the  new.  They  should  not  only  train  the  children  in  habits  of 
cleanliness,  health,  and  neatness,  for  which  the  studies  in  the  official  program 
make  provision,  but  they  should  try  to  reach  sympathetically  and  helpfully  the 
parents  as  well.  They  should  tactfully  suggest  better  plans  for  making  the 
homes  convenient  and  comfortable,  by  the  use  of  proper  floors,  simple  but  useful 
furniture,  better  provisions  for  health  and  decency,  and  the  planting  of  grass, 
shrubbery,  and  trees.  They  should  also  encourage  a  healthy  rivalry  in  these 
and  other  directions,  so  that  the  whole  village  may  become  interested  in  the  idea 
of  freeing  itself  from  all  obnoxious  sights  and  smells,  and  in  keeping  its  streets 
smooth  and  clean,  so  that  every  citizen  may  be  proud  of  his  home  and  its 
surroundings. 

The  relatively  low  place  held  by  women  in  the  Balkan  States,  as  shown  by 
the  high  rate  of  illiteracy  of  females,  is  emphasized  when  so  large  a  proportion 
of  the  peasants  are  under  arms  and  the  hard  labor  in  the  fields  must  be  per- 
formed by  women,  frequently  without  the  aid  of  animals.  Examples  of  loyalty 
and  devotion  thus  afforded  do  not  compensate  for  the  physical  and  social  loss. 
A  people  can  not  rise  high  in  the  social  scale  while  women  are  permitted  to 
bear  the  heaviest  burdens  and  perform  the  hardest  labor.  The  greatest  social 
need  in  the  Balkan  States  today  is  the  raising  of  the  standard  of  home  life  among 
the  peasants  and  the  elevation  of  women  by  education  which  is  both  cultural 
and  practical. 

The  conditions  in  Macedonia  make  it  necessary  that  broad,  considerate,  and 
helpful  administrative  methods  be  applied.  Those  forms  of  coercion,  intoler- 
ance, and  anti-social  management,  to  which  reference  has  been  made  already, 
give  to  Greece  and  Servia  a  bad  name  before  the  world.  Nothing  short  of 
complete,  generous  provision  for  education  undertaken  along  social  and  voca- 
tional lines  will  make  amends  for  the  evil  done.  The  situation  is  serious  and 
far  from  hopeful ;  something  more  than  military  force  is  needed.  The  Com- 
mission has  met  several  governors,  civil  and  military,  in  new  Greece  who,  pos- 
sessed of  real  sympathy,  are  endeavoring  to  help  a  distressed  and  long  defrauded 
people  to  repair  their  losses  and  to  enter  hopefully  upon  a  new  era  of  security 
and  peace.  Any  attempt  to  revert  to  former  methods  of  national  propaganda 
through  bands  of  more  or  less  irresponsible  adventurers  should  be  discounte- 
nanced and  vigorously  opposed.  Such  brigandage  is  worse  than  war,  for  it 
promotes  incessant  fear  and  insecurity  and  renders  civilized  life  impossible. 

In  the  older  civilizations  there  is  a  synthesis  of  moral  and  social  forces 
embodied  in  laws  and  institutions  giving  stability  of  character,  forming  public 
sentiment,  and  making  for  security.  In  some  notable  cases  there  is  the  re- 
enforcement  of  the  Church  in  its  teaching  of  righteousness  and  charity  and  in  its 
practice  of  social  service.  This  is  largely  wanting  in  the  Balkan  States.  The 
Church  does  not  systematically  teach  either  morals  or  religion ;  its  bishops  and 
priests  are  the  employes  of  the  State  and  they  are  the  propagandists  of  nation- 


272  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

ality.  Conversion  with  them  means  a  change  from  one  nationality  to  another, 
whether  accomplished  by  persuasion  or  force.  Religious  conviction  or  faith 
have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  As  typical  of  the  methods  of  conversion  employed, 
a  Bulgarian  teacher  from  Macedonia  reported  that  one  Sunday  the  Servian 
soldiers  surrounded  a  Bulgarian  church.  When  the  worshipers  came  out  at  the 
close  of  the  service,  a  table  stood  before  the  door  upon  which  were  a  paper  and  a 
revolver.  They  were  to  choose  between  these ;  either  they  were  to  sign  the  paper, 
signifying  that  they  thus  became  Servians,  or  were  to  suffer  death.  They  all 
signed.  But  what  a  travesty  upon  the  true  mission  of  a  church  and  what  a 
perversion  of  the  idea  of  human  government! 

The  Commission,  from  what  they  have  seen  and  heard,  indulge  in  no  opti- 
mism regarding  the  immediate  political  future  of  Macedonia.  Servia  is  now 
at  war  with  Albania,  Bulgaria  is  brooding  over  what  she  regards  as  her  unjust 
treatment,  and  Greece  is  not  yet  sure  of  her  tenure  in  some  parts  of  the  new 
territory.  None  of  these  nations  can  reduce  their  armies  to  a  peace  footing, 
for  their  neighbors  are  as  ready  to  break  treaties  as  they  are  to  make  them. 
Doubtless  the  greatest  menace  to  the  moral  and  social  welfare  of  the  Balkan 
States  is  the  increasing  tendency  to  militarism,  whereby  they  become  a  prey  to 
the  agents  of  the  makers  of  guns  and  other  war  material,  involving  enormous 
expenses  and  leading  to  national  impoverishment.  Where  the  economic  interests 
of  a  people  are  mainly  along  agricultural  lines  and  where  scientific  farming  is 
not  largely  developed  and  where  most  of  the  people  are  relatively  poor,  there 
can  be  only  a  moderate  annual  surplus.  If  this  is  required  to  pay  interest  on 
the  national  debt,  as  well  as  to  provide  for  the  abnormal  cost  of  occasional  wars, 
national  progress  will  be  retarded  and  enterprise  will  be  throttled.  What  the 
Balkan  States  need  today  more  than  anything  else  is  a  long  period  of  assured 
peace  so  that  industry  and  education  may  have  a  broader  and  richer  development. 

This  suggests  a  final  inquiry  concerning  the  relations  of  the  Balkan  States 
to  the  new  world  movement  for  international  cooperation  and  justice.  The 
bearing  of  international  law  upon  the  conduct  of  war  and  the  treatment  of 
people  and  of  private  property  by  belligerents  has  already  been  discussed.  It  is 
the  larger  moral  question  which  is  here  raised,  for  upon  it  depends  the  future 
destiny  of  the  Balkan  peoples.  If  the  treaty  of  Bucharest  had  been  in  accord 
with  fair  play  and  justice,  or  if  the  question  of  boundaries  could  have  been 
referred  to  mediation,  there  would  have  been  stronger  hopes  that  the  interrela- 
tion of  the  Balkan  nations  could  be  improved  and  strengthened,  that  through 
cultural  exchange,  trade,  and  friendly  intercourse  these  peoples  would  begin  to 
learn  what  other  nations  have  discovered,  viz.,  that  their  interests  are  mutual, 
that  in  a  high  human  sense  they  are  one,  that  they  injure  themselves  by  trying 
to  injure  one  another.  Under  present  conditions,  which  this  report  has  fully 
disclosed,  the  case  seems  well  nigh  hopeless;  and  yet,  in  each  country,  were 
found  men  and  women  of  rank  and  education  who  expressed  the  most  fervent 


MORAL  AND    SOCIAL    CONSEQUENCES   OF   THE   WARS  273 

wish  that  hatreds  and  jealousies  might  be  removed  and  that  good  will  and  co- 
operation might  take  their  place.  What  then  is  the  duty  of  the  civilized  world 
in  the  Balkans,  especially  of  those  nations  who,  by  their  location  and  history,  are 
free  from  international  entanglements?  It  is  clear  in  the  first  place  that  they 
should  cease  to  exploit  these  nations  for  gain.  They  should  encourage  them 
to  make  arbitration  treaties  and  insist  upon  their  keeping  them.  They  should 
set  a  good  example  by  seeking  a  judicial  settlement  of  all  international  disputes. 
The  consequences  of  the  recent  war,  economic,  moral,  and  social,  are  dreadful 
enough  to  justify  any  honest  effort  by  any  person  or  by  any  nation  to  alleviate 
the  really  distressing  situation. 

The  recently  dedicated  Peace  Palace  at  The  Hague  stands  as  a  witness  to 
the  new  and  larger  patriotism.  As  in  the  long  past  individuals  have  brought 
precious  gifts  to  their  favorite  shrines,  so  have  the  nations  of  the  earth  from 
the  East  and  West  brought  to  this  temple  their  offerings  in  varied  and  beautiful 
forms,  thus  pledging  their  belief  that  through  justice  peace  is  to  reign  upon  the 
earth.  The  Commission  has  performed  as  well  as  it  could  a  serious  and  trying 
duty.  In  reporting  to  the  world  its  findings  it  has  felt  obliged  to  use  plain 
words,  to  make  revelations  which  are  at  once  startling  and  painful ;  but  its  mem- 
bers feel  like  appealing  to  the  world  for  sympathy  and  aid  on  behalf  of  nations 
which  have  heavy  burdens  to  carry  and  hard  lessons  to  learn,  among  which  is 
the  supreme  value  of  peace  and  good  will. 


APPENDICES 

Documents  Relating  to  Chapters  II,  III,  and  VI 


APPENDIX  A1 


Documents  Relating  to  Chapter  II 

THE  PLIGHT  OF  THE  MACEDONIAN  MOSLEMS  DURING  THE  FIRST  WAR 

No.  i.    EVIDENCE  OF  RAHNI  EFFENDI,  of  Strumnitsa. 

The  Bulgarian  army  arrived  on  Monday,  November  4,  1912.  With  the  two  Bishops 
and  two  other  notables  I  went  out  to  negotiate  the  surrender  of  our  town  with  the  comman- 
dant. On  entering  the  town,  the  Bulgarians  disarmed  the  Moslem  inhabitants,  but  behaved 
well  and  did  not  loot.  Next  day,  a  Bulgarian  civil  authority  was  established,  but  the 
Servians  had  the  military  control.  The  Bulgarian  army  marched  on  to  Doiran;  on  its 
departure  looting  and  slaughter  began.  I  saw  an  old  man  of  eighty  lying  in  the  street 
with  his  head  split  open,  and  the  dead  body  of  a  boy  of  thirteen.  About  thirty  Moslems 
were  killed  that  day  in  the  streets, — I  believe  by  the  Bulgarian  bands.  On  Wednesday 
evening,  an  order  was  issued  that  no  Moslem  might  leave  his  house  day  or  night  until 
further  notice.  A  commission  was  then  formed  from  the  Bulgarian  notables  of  the  town; 
the  Servian  military  commander  presided,  and  the  Bulgarian  Civil  Governor  also  sat 
upon  it.  A  local  gendarmerie  was  appointed  and  a  gendarme  and  a  soldier  were  told  off 
to  go  round  from  house  to  house,  summoning  the  Moslems,  one  by  one,  to  attend  the 
commission.  I  was  summoned  myself  with  the  rest. 

The  procedure  was  as  follows :  The  Servian  commandant  would  inquire,  "What  kind 
of  a  man  is  this?"  The  answer  was  simply  either  "good"  or  "bad."  No  inquiry  was  made 
into  our  characters ;  there  was  no  defense  and  no  discussion ;  if  one  member  of  the 
commission  said  "bad,"  that  sufficed  to  condemn  the  prisoner.  Each  member  of  the  com- 
mission had  his  own  enemies  whom  he  wished  to  destroy,  and  therefore  did  not  oppose 
the  wishes  of  his  fellow  members.  When  sentence  was  pronounced  the  prisoner  was 
stripped  of  his  outer  clothes  and  bound,  and  his  money  was  taken  by  the  Servian  com- 
mander. I  was  pronounced  "good,"  and  so  perhaps  were  one-tenth  of  the  prisoners. 
Those  sentenced  were  bound  together  by  threes,  and  taken  to  the  slaughter  house;  their 
ears  and  noses  were  often  cut  off  before  they  were  killed.  This  slaughter  went  on  for 
a  month;  I  believe  that  from  three  to  four  thousand  Moslems  were  killed  in  the  town 
and  the  neighboring  villages. 

NOTE. — At  this  point  the  conversation  became  general  and  the  four  notables  from 
Strumnitsa  each  related  how  he  had  lost  a  son,  a  grandson,  or  a  brother  in  this  massacre. 

No.  2.  ABDUL  KERIN  AGA,  of  Strumnitsa,  confirmed  the  statements  of  the  previous 
witness.  His  own  son  was  brought  bound  to  the  gate  at  his  house ;  he  then  went  to  Toma, 
the  chief  of  the  Bulgarian  bands,  and  tried  to  bargain  with  him  for  his  son's  life.  Toma 
demanded  a  hundred  pounds;  he  had  previously  paid  on  two  different  occasions  £50 


NOTE. — xThe  reader  will  note  here  and  there  in  the  appendices  faulty  phraseology,  which 
has  not  been  translated  into  good  English.  These  documents  reproduce  testimony  given  by 
soldiers,  peasants  and  uneducated  people,  and  the  Commission  has  endeavored  to  preserve 
the  original  wording  in  all  such  cases. 


278  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

and  £70  to  save  this  same  son.  He  told  Toma  that  he  had  not  the  money  ready,  but 
would  try  to  sell  a  shop  if  the  Bulgarians  would  wait  until  evening.  Toma  refused  to 
wait  and  his  son  was  shot. 

No.  3.  HADJI  SULEIMAN  EFFENDI,  of  Strumnitsa,  agreed  with  the  account  which  Rahni 
Effendi  had  given  of  the  doings  of  the  commission.  The  Servian  troops  left  the  town 
and  Bulgarians  replaced  them,  and  remained  up  to  the  outbreak  of  the  second  war.  On 
the  whole  they  behaved  fairly  well.  There  was,  however,  some  looting  when  they  evacuated 
the  town  after  their  defeats  in  the  second  war;  and  about  thirty  people  were  then  killed, 
including  the  Greek  priest.  The  Greek  army  then  occupied  the  town.  They  subsequently 
gave  the  order  that  the  Moslems  must  abandon  the  town;  and  added  that  they,  the 
Greeks,  would  burn  the  houses  if  the  Moslems  would  not.  I  myself  offered  £3  to  the 
Greek  patrol  which  came  to  burn  down  my  house.  The  sergeant  refused  to  take  it,  and 
said  that  if  he  did  not  burn  the  house  another  patrol  would.  The  buildings  were  all 
systematically  burnt,  and  the  same  thing  was  done  in  about  thirty-two  neighboring  villages. 
"We  [pointing  to  the  others  who  were  present]  were  all  large  farmers,  employing,  each  of  us, 
nearly  300  laborers  and  tenants;  now  we  have  nothing."  (See  also  No.  65.) 

No.  4.  The  Carnegie  Commission  visited  the  camp  of  the  Moslem  refugees  outside 
Salonica  and  talked  with  two  groups  of  them  who  came  from  villages  near  Strumnitsa.  The 
Greeks  told  them  that  the  Bulgarians  would  certainly  massacre  them  if  they  stayed  in  the 
town;  they  urged,  and  pressed  and  persuaded.  Most  left  under  pressure.  A  few  remained, 
and  these  were  forced  to  leave.  They  heard  that  other  villages  had  been  burnt  after  they 
left,  and  some  of  them  actually  saw  their  villages  in  flames.  They  had  received  no  rations 
from  the  Greeks  for  four  days;  they  had  no  plans  for  the  future,  did  not  wish  to  go  to 
Asia,  nor  yet  to  settle  in  Greek  territory.  They  saw  "no  good  in  front  of  them  at  all." 

A  group  of  these  refugees  from  the  village  Yedna-Kuk,  near  Strumnitsa,  gave  their 
experiences  during  the  first  war.  The  Bulgarian  bands  arrived  before  the  regular  army, 
and  ordered  the  whole  male  population  to  assemble  in  the  mosque.  They  were  shut  in 
and  robbed  of  £300  in  all.  Eighteen  of  the  wealthier  villagers  were  bound  and  taken  to 
Bossilovo,  where  they  were  killed  and  buried.  The  villagers  were  able  to  remember  nine 
of  their  names. 

No.  5.  The  officials  of  the  Comite  Islamique,  of  Salonica,  informed  us  on  September  I 
that  there  were  135,000  Mohammedan  refugees  in  and  around  the  town,  most  of  whom  had 
arrived  since  the  second  war.  Of  these,  six  or  eight  thousand  had  already  gone  to  Asia 
Minor,  chiefly  to  Mersina,  Adalia,  and  Skenderoun.  The  Greek  government  had  promised 
to  supply  five  steamers,  and  in  the  last  few  days  3,000  had  received  tickets.  The  com- 
mittee reminded  the  Greek  government  that  it  was  responsible  for  the  refugees  now  in 
Salonica,  since  it  had  obliged  them  to  quit  their  homes.  It  has  requested  the  government 
to  supply  these  refugees  with  bread.  The  committee  was  then  spending  £50  daily  on  bread. 
In  reply  to  questions,  the  committee  did  not  believe  that  any  considerable  number  of  the 
Moslem  refugees  would  be  given  lands  in  Greek  Macedonia.  Some  perhaps  might  be 
given  at  Kukush,  but  not  more  than  one  or  two  thousand  people  could  be  absorbed  as  farm 
laborers. 

No.  6.    EARLY  EVENTS  AT  KUKUSH,  in  the  autumn  of  1912. 

The  Catholic  priest  Gustave  Michel,  superior  of  the  mission  at  Kukush,  gave  the  fol- 
lowing information  to  the  correspondent  of  Le  Temps  (July  10).  He  could  testify  to  cer- 
tain massacres  perpetrated  by  the  Bulgarian  bands  at  Kurkut.  A  Bulgarian  band  led  by 
Donchev  shut  all  the  men  of  the  place  in  the  mosque,  and  gathered  the  women  round  it, 


APPENDICES  279 

in  order  to  oblige  them  to  witness  the  spectacle.  The  comitadjis  then  threw  three  bombs 
at  the  mosque  but  it  was  not  blown  up;  they  then  set  fire  to  it,  and  all  who  were  shut 
up  in  it,  to  the  number  of  about  700  men,  were  burnt  alive.  Those  who  attempted  to  flee 
were  shot  down  by  comitadjis  posted  round  the  mosque,  and  Pere  Michel  found  human 
heads,  arms,  and  legs  lying  about  half  burned  in  the  streets.  At  Planitsa,  Donchev's  band 
committed  still  worse  atrocities.  It  first  drove  all  the  men  to  the  mosque  and  burnt  them 
alive;  it  then  gathered  the  women  and  burnt  them  in  their  turn  in  the  public  square.  At 
Rayonovo  a  number  of  men  and  women  were  massacred;  the  Bulgarians  filled  a  well  with 
their  corpses.  At  Kukush  the  Moslems  were  massacred  by  the  Bulgarian  population  of  the 
town  and  their  mosque  destroyed.  All  the  Turkish  soldiers  who  fled  without  arms  and 
arrived  in  groups  from  Salonica  were  massacred. 

NOTE. — The  Commission  failed  to  meet  Father  Michel,  and  must  leave  to  the  corre- 
spondent of  Le  Temps  the  responsibility  for  his  statement. 

No.  7.  ALT  RIZA  EFFENDI,  of  Kukush,  states  that  the  Bulgarian  bands  entered  Kukush 
on  October  30,  after  the  Turks  had  left.  Toma  of  Istip,  their  leader,  installed  himself  as 
governor,  and  told  the  people  to  have  no  fear.  Both  Servian  and  Bulgarian  detachments 
passed  through  the  town,  but  only  a  very  few  soldiers  were  left  there  while  the  main  army 
went  on  to  Salonica.  After  the  occupation  of  Salonica,  disarmed  Turkish  soldiers  in  groups 
of  two  to  three  hundred  at  a  time  marched  through  Kukush  on  their  way  to  their  homes. 
They  were  captured  by  the  Bulgarian  bands  and  slaughtered,  to  the  number  of  perhaps 
2,000.  A  commission  of  thirty  to  forty  Christians  was  established,  which  drew  up  lists  of 
all  the  Moslem  inhabitants  throughout  the  district.  Everyone  was  summoned  to  the 
mosque  and  there  informed  that  he  had  been  rated  to  pay  a  certain  sum.  Whole  villages, 
were  made  responsible  for  the  total  amount ;  most  of  the  men  were  imprisoned  and  were 
obliged  to  sell  everything  they  possessed,  including  their  wives'  ornaments,  in  order  to- 
pay  the  ransom.  They  were  often  killed  in  spite  of  the  payment  of  the  money  in  full; 
he,  himself,  actually  saw  a  Bulgarian  comitadji  cut  off  two  fingers  of  a  man's  hand  and 
force  him  to  drink  his  own  blood  mixed  with  raki.  From  the  whole  county  (Caza)  of 
Kukush  £T  1,500  were  taken.  The  chief  of  bands,  Donchev,  arrived  and  matters  were  still 
worse.  He  burnt  three  Turkish  villages  in  one  day,  Raianovo,  Planitsa  and  Kukurtovo — 
345  houses  in  all.  He  shut  up  the  men  in  the  mosques  and  burnt  them  alive;  the  women- 
were  shut  up  in  barns  and  ill  used;  children  were  actually  flung  against  the  walls  and 
killed.  This  the  witness  did  not  see,  but  heard  from  his  Christian  neighbors.  Only  twenty- 
two  Moslem  families  out  of  300  remained  in  Kukush ;  the  rest  fled  to  Salonica.  Twelve 
small  Moslem  villages  were  wiped  out  in  the  first  war,  the  men  killed  and  the  women 
taken  away.  He  was  in  Kukush  when  the  Greeks  entered  it.  The  Bulgarians  in  leaving 
the  town  burnt  nothing  but  the  bakers'  ovens.  The  Greeks  systematically  and  deliberately 
plundered  and  burnt  the  town.  He  believes  that  many  aged  Bulgarian  inhabitants  were 
burnt  alive  in  their  houses.  He  himself  found  refuge  in  the  Catholic  orphanage. 

No.  8.  REPORT'  SIGNED  BY  YOUSSOUF  EFFENDI,  President  of  the  Moslem  Community 
of  Serres,  and  sealed  with  its  seal. 

On  November  6,  1912,  the  inhabitants  of  Serres,  sent  a  deputation  to  meet  the  Bul- 
garian army  and  surrender  the  town.  Next  day  Zancov,  a  Bulgarian  Chief  of  bands, 
appeared  in  the  town  with  sixteen  men,  and  began  to  disarm  the  population.  A  day  later 
the  Bulgarian  army  entered  Serres  and  received  a  warm  welcome.  That  evening  the  Bul- 
garian soldiers,  on  the  pretext  that  arms  were  still  hidden  in  the  houses  of  the  Moslems, 
entered  them  and  began  to  steal  money  and  other  valuables.  Next  day  the  Moslem  refugees 
from  the  district  north  of  Serres  were  invited  to  appear  at  the  prefecture;  they  obeyed 
ihe  summons;  but  on  their  arrival  a  trumpet  sounded  and  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  seized 


280  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

their  arms  and  began  to  massacre  these  inoffensive  people ;  the  massacre  lasted  three  hours 
and  resulted  in  the  death  of  600  Moslems.  The  number  of  the  victims  would  have  been 
incalculable  had  it  not  been  for  the  energetic  intervention  of  the  Greek  bishop,  and  of 
the  director  of  the  Orient  bank. 

The  Moslems  of  the  town  were  then  arrested  in  the  cafes,  houses  and  streets,  and 
imprisoned,  some  at  the  prefecture  and  others  in  the  mosques;  many  of  the  former  were 
slaughtered  with  bayonets.  Bulgarian  soldiers  in  the  meantime  entered  Turkish  houses, 
violated  the  women  and  girls  and  stole  everything  they  could  lay  their  hands  on.  The 
Moslems  imprisoned  in  the  overcrowded  mosques  were  left  without  food  for  two  days 
and  nights  and  then  released.  For  six  days  rifle  shots  were  heard  on  all  sides;  the 
Moslems  were  afraid  to  leave  their  houses;  and  of  this  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  took  advan- 
tage to  pillage  their  shops.  Moslem  corpses  lay  about  in  the  streets  and  were  buried 
only  when  they  began  to  putrify.  For  several  days  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  destroyed  houses 
and  mosques  in  order  to  obtain  firewood.  The  corn  and  animals  of  the  Moslems  were 
seized  by  the  Bulgarian  authorities  without  any  receipt  or  note  of  requisition.  Com- 
plaints made  on  this  subject  were  ignored.  The  furniture  and  antiquities  belonging  to  the 
schools,  mosques  and  hospitals  were  taken  and  sent  to  Sofia.  The  Bulgarians  subjected 
several  Moslem  notables  to  all  sorts  of  humiliations;  they  were  driven  with  whips  to 
sweep  the  streets  and  stables;  and  many  a  blow  was  given  to  those  who  dared  to  wear  a 
fez.  In  a  word,  during  the  Bulgarian  occupation  the  Moslems  were  robbed  and  maltreated 
both  in  the  streets  and  at  the  prefecture,  unless  they  had  happened  to  give  board  and 
lodging  to  some  Bulgarian  officer.  The  Bulgarian  officers  and  gendarmes  before  leaving 
Serres  took  everything  that  was  left  in  the  shops  of  Moslems,  Jews  and  Greeks,  and 
pitilessly  burnt  a  large  number  of  houses,  shops,  cafes,  and  mills. 

September  5,  1913. 

No.  g.  LIEUTENANT  R.  WADHAM  FISHER  [on  English  Volunteer  in  the  Fifth  Bat- 
talion of  the  Macedonian  Legion]. 

Lieutenant  Fisher  explained  the  circumstances  of  the  massacre  which  occurred  at 
Dede-Agatch.  "A  sharp  fight  took  place  outside  the  town  between  the  legion  and  the 
army  of  Javer  Pacha;  wherever  the  Turkish  villages  showed  the  white  flag,  our  troops 
were  forbidden  to  march  through  them.  Our  men  had  been  much  inflamed  by  reports  of 
outrages  committed  by  Turks  on  Bulgarians  near  Gumurjina.  We  entered  Dede-Agatch  under 
fire  towards  9  p.m.  after  marching  and  fighting  all  day.  Javer  Pacha  insisted  on  withdraw- 
ing into  the  town  and  we  were  obliged  to  pursue  him.  Bullets  were  still  whistling  through 
the  streets,  but  the  local  Greeks  came  out  to  show  us  where  the  Turkish  soldiers  were 
posted.  The  Greeks  feared  a  massacre  and  regarded  our  coming  as  their  salvation.  I  saw 
something  of  the  search  for  arms;  no  one  was  harmed.  At  11  p.m.  we  received  an  order 
to  withdraw  from  the  town,  and  to  march  to  a  village  twenty-five  kilometers  away.  Some 
150  men  were  left  in  the  town,  either  because  the  order  did  not  reach  them  or  because  they 
were  too  exhausted  to  obey  it.  No  officer  was  among  them,  and  they  were  organized  by  a 
private  soldier,  Stefan  Boichev,  a  contractor  of  Widin.  The  Greek  bishop  afterwards 
stated  that  Stefan  Boichev  had  done  good  service  in  reestablishing  order.  On  November 
19  the  lower  class  Greeks  and  the  soldiers  began  to  pillage  the  town  together.  A  certain 
number  of  the  local  Turks  were  undoubtedly  killed.  These  excesses  must  be  explained  by 
the  absence  of  any  officers. 

No.  10.    BORIS  MONCHEV,  Bulgarian  Mayor  of  Dede-Agatch. 

This  witness  confirmed  Lieutenant  Fisher's  account,  believed  that  not  more  than  twenty 
Turks  were  killed  in  the  massacre,  and  insisted  that  the  local  Armenian  porters  (hamals) 
tiad  taken  the  chief  part  in  the  disturbances.  There  were  in  the  town  fully  8,000  Turkish 


APPENDICES  281 

refugees,  of  whom  all  the  men  were  armed  and  had  taken  part  in  the  fight  outside  the 
town,  from  7  to  9  p.m.  After  the  first  disastrous  night,  everything  was  done  to  maintain 
order  by  a  commission  which  included  the  Greek  bishop  and  himself.  The  142  Macedonian 
volunteers  obeyed  their  orders.  The  Bulgarian  army  returned  to  the  town  six  days  later, 
November  25,  and  order  was  fully  restored. 

The  notorious  incident  of  the  killing  of  Riza-bey,  the  Imperial  Turkish  Commissioner 
of  the  Junction  railway  line,  is  to  be  explained  by  the  fact  that  as  he  was  being  taken 
under  arrest  to  the  school  he  attempted  to  snatch  a  rifle  from  a  Macedonian  volunteer, 
and  was  killed  by  the  volunteers  on  the  spot. 

In  the  course  of  a  search  on  the  eve  of  the  second  war  twenty-seven  Gras  rifles  and 
letters  used  for  signalling  were  found  in  Greek  houses ;  also  a  store  of  rifles  at  the  bishop's 
palace.  In  consequence  of  this,  fifty  leading  Greeks  were  arrested  as  hostages  for  the 
good  behavior  of  the  town,  and  sent  to  Bulgaria.  It  is  probable  that  some  of  these  were 
liberated  after  paying  bribes.  The  town  was  without  a  regular  government  from  July 
22,  and  much  robbery  took  place;  but  he  had  previously  taken  the  precaution  of  sending 
the  Armenian  hamals,  who  were  always  a  troublesome  element,  out  of  the  town. 

No.  ii.    VASIL  SMILEV,  a  Bulgarian  Teacher  at  Uskub. 

He  stated  that  on  the  entry  of  the  Servian  army  into  Uskub,  efforts  were  made  by 
the  Servian  authorities  to  persuade  all  the  Bulgarian  teachers  to  join  the  bands  which  they 
were  forming  in  order  to  pursue  the  Turkish  bands.  He  served  for  twenty  or  thirty  days, 
but  left  the  band  because  it  was  continually  engaged  in  burning,  torturing  and  killing.  He 
witnessed  the  slaughter  of  eighteen  Turks  who  had  been  collected  in  the  Bulgarian  school 
of  the  Tchair  quarter  of  the  town.  They  were  killed  in  the  open  and  their  bodies  thrown 
into  a  well  near  the  brickworks.  This  happened  about  9  p.m.,  four  days  after  the  festival 
of  Saint  Paraskeva.  He  named  four  of  them.  Later  he  witnessed  the  Servian  chief  of 
police,  Lazar  Ilyts,  who  had  been  responsible  for  this  massacre,  superintending  the  pillage 
of  the  village  Butel.  Near  this  village  he  met  a  number  of  Albanian  villagers  fleeing  from 
their  village.  A  Servian  major  unveiled  and  kissed  a  young  girl  among  them.  Her  father 
killed  him  on  the  spot.  Thereupon  the  Servian  band  massacred  the  whole  body  of  fugitives, 
men  and  women,  to  the  number  of  sixty.  This  he  witnessed  personally  and  reported  it  at 
the  time  to  the  Russian  consulate.  After  this  he  refused  to  have  anything  further  to  do 
with  the  Servian  bands.  He  was  expelled  afterwards  from  Uskub  with  the  other  Bul- 
garian teachers. 

No.  12.  A  MOSLEM  NOTABLE  of  Yailadjik  (name  suppressed),  a  village  one  and  a  half 
hours'  distant  from  Salonica,  states — On  Nov.  7,  1912,  most  of  us  fled  to  Salonica,  leaving 
about  twenty-five  men  in  the  village.  On  the  8th  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  came  and  did  no 
harm,  except  to  take  the  food  and  forage  they  required.  They  passed  on  after  spending  a 
day  and  a  night,  and  two  days  later  the  Greek  soldiers  came,  together  with  people  from  the 
neighboring  Greek  villages.  They  killed  fifteen  Moslems,  and  took  all  the  furniture,  9,500 
sheep  and  goats,  1,500  cattle,  and  all  the  grain  which  they  could  find,  and  then  burned  the 
250  houses  of  the  village. 

No.  13.     BULGARIAN  COURTS-MARTIAL. 

On  January  10,  1913,  the  headquarters  of  the  Bulgarian  army  issued  the  following  tele- 
graphic order  (No.  2360)  to  the  commanders  and  military  governors  of  Thrace  and  Mace- 
donia : 

Following  on  the  secret  order  of  December  13,  I  order  and  hold  you  personally 
responsible  for  the  execution  of  my  order  that  inquiries  be  instituted  into  all  excesses, 


282  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

robberies,  and  violations,  which  may  have  been  committed  against  the  inhabitants  of 
the  enemy's  country  occupied  by  the  troops  under  your  orders.  We  came  to  liber- 
ate these  countries  in  the  name  of  freedom  and  order,  and  the  commander-in-chief 
can  not  remain  indifferent  towards  the  criminal  acts  of  individuals,  since  otherwise 
we  should  lead  the  world  to  suppose  that  our  civilization  is  in  no  respect  superior 
to  that  of  our  adversaries,  and  the  honor  of  the  Bulgarian  army  would  thereby  be 
compromised.  This  would  result  in  causing  unforeseen  difficulties  to  our  country. 
The  Bulgarian  army  must  prove  to  the  eyes  of  the  whole  world  that  now,  as  always, 
justice  and  legality  are  supreme  within  its  ranks  and  that  criminals  do  not  go  un- 
punished. Report  immediately  on  the  subject  of  the  crimes  which  you  have  ascer- 
tained to  have  taken  place  and  the  measures  you  have  adopted, 

On  February  15,  1913,  the  Supreme  Military  Tribunal  transmitted  to  the  President  of 
the  courts-martial  the  following  order : 

(No.  989).  Report  immediately  the  number  of  persons  condemned  up  to  the 
present  moment  for  various  crimes,  and  especially  murders,  violations,  and  pillage 
committed  against  the  local  population,  whatever  its  nationality,  and  particularly 
the  Turkish  population.  *  *  *  The  essential  interests  of  this  State  demand  that 
cases  of  this  kind  should  be  dealt  with  with  the  utmost  despatch  and  should  be  given 
preference  over  all  others.  The  military  courts  must  enable  the  government  to  show 
the  civilized  world  that  the  crimes  committed  in  the  course  of  the  war  of  liberation 
have  not  gone  unpunished. 

No.  130,.  A  report  drawn  up  by  the  Moslem  community  of  Pravishta,  on  the  atroci- 
ties committed  in  that  town  and  the  neighboring  villages  since  the  withdrawal  of  the  Turk- 
ish authorities  on  October  24,  1913. 

[NOTE. — The  names  of  all  of  the  killed  (195  in  all)  and  of  some  of  those  robbed,  and 
also  those  of  the  aggressors,  are  fully  given  in  the  original  Turkish  document,  but  are 
omitted  in  the  following  summarized  translation]. 

Village  of  Giran. — Twenty-one  Moslems  killed  by  the  Greeks  of  the  village  of  Nikchan, 
and  a  sum  of  about  £T3,000  stolen.  Six  hundred  goats  were  also  stolen  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Greek  church  at  Nikchan  and  2,400  goats  taken  by  the  Greeks  of  Djerbelan. 

Village  of  Palihor. — Six  Moslems  killed  by  the  band  commanded  by  Demosthenes,  head- 
master of  the  Greek  school  of  Palihor,  pillage  to  the  extent  of  about  £T3,000.  One  woman 
(named)  was  violated  by  Demosthenes  and  another. 

Village  of  Micheli. — Demosthenes  and  other  Greeks  pillaged  the  village,  carried  off 
many  oxen  and  much  corn  and  stole  credit  notes  for  a  sum  of  £T3,000. 

Village  of  Drama. — Two  Moslems  killed  by  Greeks  of  Pravishta. 

Village  of  Osmanli. — Six  Moslems  killed  by  Greeks  of  Holo;  about  £T1,500  stolen. 

Village  of  Samalcol. — 'Twenty-one  Moslems  of  this  village  were  taken  by  Miltiades  Ma- 
chopoulos  of  the  band  of  Myriacos  Mihail  to  the  ravine  of  Casroub,  where  they  were 
massacred  by  the  Greek  bandit  Leonidas  and  others.  Over  £T1,500  were  stolen  from  them; 
a  shop  looted  of  stock  worth  £T  1,500,  and  about  £17,000  stolen  in  the  village  generally. 

Village  of  Tchanahli. — Two  Moslems  killed  by  Greeks  of  Holo;  200  sheep  and  a  mule 
stolen. 

Village  of  Mouchtian. — Twenty-five  Moslems  killed  by  Myriacos  Mihail,  his  band  and 
some  local  Greeks  in  the  ravine  of  Casroub.  "In  the  twentieth  century  of  progress,  the 
skeletons  which  may  still  be  seen  in  this  ravine,  present  to  the  eyes  of  Justice  a  monument 
capable  of  enlightening  her  regarding  Hellenic  civilization."  About  £T3,000  stolen. 

Village  of  Dranich. — £T2,000  in  money,  seven  goats  and  1,000  sheep  stolen  by  the  Greeks 
of  Palihor  and  Nikchan. 

Village  of  Ahadler. — Nine  Moslems  killed  by  Greeks  of  Casroub,  and  sums  amounting 
to  ;£T258  stolen. 


APPENDICES  283 

Village  of  TchiAik. — Ten  Moslems  killed  by  the  same  Greeks  of  Casroub,  and  about 
£T1,000  stolen. 

Village  of  Pethor. — Fourteen  Moslems  killed  by  the  grocer  Myriacos  Mihail,  member  of 
the  bishop's  council,  Panahi,  priest  of  Boblan,  and  Miltiades  Machopoulos.  [The  band  led 
by  these  three  men  is  frequently  mentioned.]  Local  Greeks  stole  about  £T  1,500. 

Village  of  Rehemli. — Three  Moslems  killed  by  Greeks  of  Holo. 

Village  of  Sarili. — Five  Moslems  killed  by  Greeks  of  Pethor,  and  about  1,000  sheep 
and  goats  stolen. 

Village  of  Dedebal.-^-Eight  Moslems  killed  by  Myriacos  Mihail  and  his  band;  about 
£T  1,000  stolen. 

Village  of  Deranli. — Three  Moslems  killed  by  Myriacos  Mihail  and  his  band;  about 
£T3,000  stolen. 

Village  of  Orphano. — Three  Moslems  killed  by  the  Greeks.  One  of  these  was  seized  by 
the  priest  Panahi  on  a  telephonic  order  from  the  Greek  bishop  of  Pravishta  and  killed  at 
Essirli.  The  bishop  had  had  the  telephone  removed  from  the  Turkish  governor's  office  to 
his  own  house,  and  by  this  means  he  gave  orders  to  the  whole  district. 

Village  of  Boblan. — Eight  Moslems  killed  by  Myriacos  Mihail  and  his  band,  specially 
sent  for  the  purpose  by  the  bishop;  about  £T800  stolen. 

Village  of  Carpan. — Four  Moslems  killed  by  the  band  of  Myriacos  Mihail  sent  by 
the  bishop.  The  Greeks  of  Carpan  stole  all  the  goods  and  corn  belonging  to  the  local  Mos- 
lems, and  did  not  leave  them  even  the  grain  which  they  had  in  their  household  jars.  The 
Greek  bravoes  brutally  robbed  the  women  of  their  ear-rings.  Later  Greek  soldiers  joined 
the  villagers  and  began  to  violate  the  young  women,  until  they  were  obliged  to  take  refuge 
In  the  towns  and  villages  held  by  Bulgarian  troops.  About  £T500  was  stolen  in  this  village. 

Village  of  Leftera. — Four  Moslems  killed  by  Greeks.  The  wife  of  Arnaut  Agouchagha, 
who  voluntarily  embraced  Islam  fifty  years  ago,  was  taken  to  Pravishta  to  be  reconverted 
to  Christianity.  She  told  the  Bulgarian  chief,  Baptchev,  that  she  did  not  consent  to  this 
conversion.  Baptchev  had  her  released,  but  on  her  return  to  the  village  she  was 
"odiously  lynched  by  Greek  savages."  Baptchev  took  £1500  from  a  Turk  at  the  instigation 
of  the  Greek  priests  of  the  monastery  of  Nozle,  who  also  robbed  the  villagers  of  about 
2,000  sheep. 

Village  of  Kochkar. — Two  Moslems  killed  by  Greeks  of  Drazeni  and  about  £11,000 
stolen. 

Village  of  Kale  Tchfflik. — Five  Moslems  killed,  and  all  the  cattle  seized  by  the  priests 
of  Nozle. 

Village  of  Devekeran. — Four  Moslems  killed  by  Greeks  of  Pravishta;  about  £1500 
stolen. 

Village  of  Essirli. — Nineteen  Moslems  killed  in  the  ravine  of  Casroub  by  Greeks  of  that 
village.  About  £T  1,500  stolen. 

Village  of  Kotchan. — One  Moslem  killed  to  satisfy  the  vengeance  of  the  bishop  and  of 
the  priest  Nicholas.  "It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  many  Imams  figure  among  the  list  of 
victims  in  the  district  of  Pravishta  *  *  *  further  that  the  victims  are  almost  always 
men  known  for  their  enlightenment.  *  *  *  The  reason  why  the  assassins  killed  Imams 
and  the  most  enlightened  notables  for  choice  is  obvious  when  one  reflects  that  there  are 
13,000  Moslems  in  this  district  out  of  a  total  population  of  20,000." 

Town  of  Pravishta. — Ten  Moslems  were  killed,  including  one  woman,  while  the  town 
was  held  by  Bulgarian  bands,  under  the  command  of  a  chief  named  Baptchev,  who  estab- 
lished himself  in  the  governor's  palace  and  acted  as  governor  and  commandant.  They  were 
killed  by  three  Greeks  (named)  and  the  Bulgarians.  On  the  evening  when  an  assassination 
was  to  take  place,  the  students  of  the  Greek  school  assembled  in  the  courtyard  of  the  govern- 
ment house  and  sang  the  Greek  national  anthem. 


284  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

The  Greek  bishop  formed  a  municipal  council  composed  of  the  priest  Nicholas,  the 
grocer  Myriacos  Mihail,  and  others  (named).  The  sentence  of  death  was  passed  by  this 
council,  approved  by  the  archbishop,  and  communicated  to  Baptchev  to  be  carried  out. 
Similar  councils  were  formed  in  the  villages  which  took  their  orders  from  that  of  Pra- 
vishta.  The  Bulgarian  chief  Baptchev  served  as  the  tool  of  the  Greek  bishop  and  notables. 
In  this  town  the  Moslem  population  has  incurred  a  loss  of  about  £T3,000,  stolen  by  the 
Bulgarian  bands,  guided  by  the  Greeks. 

The  daughter  of  the  commander  of  the  gendarmeries,  Suleiman  Effendi,  who  is  now 
in  Constantinople,  was  summoned  one  night  to  the  bishopric  to  be  converted  to  Christianity. 
The  bishop  threatened  her,  in  order  to  convert  her,  but  the  Bulgarian  chief  Baptchev,  when 
he  heard  of  this,  went  to  the  bishopric,  saved  the  girl,  restored  her  to  her  family,  and  thus 
prevented  her  conversion.  Some  days  later  he  gave  her  a  passport  to  go  to  Constantinople. 

Thanks  to  the  orders  issued  by  Baptchev  the  mosques  of  the  town  and  the  villages  were 
preserved  intact,  and  no  one  was  molested  on  account  of  his  religion. 

Neither  the  Bulgarian  officers,  nor  their  soldiers  nor  even  the  members  of  the  bands 
committed  any  violence  against  women,  but  Baptchev  took  money  to  the  value  of  about 
£T6,000. 

The  priest  Panahi  of  the  village  of  Nikchan  and  the  Greek  antiquarian  Apostol,  of  the 
village  of  Palihor,  who  disapproved  of  the  unworthy  conduct  of  the  bishop,  were  killed 
by  his  orders.  The  Bulgarian  authorities  after  a  careful  inquiry  were  convinced  of  the 
bishop's  guilt.  The  bodies  of  the  victims  of  the  town  of  Pravishta  are  still  in  the  ravine  of 
Cainardja,  at  the  place  called  Kavala  Bachi. 

We  certify  that  this  report  is  in  complete  agreement  with  the  registers  of  the  Moslem 
community  of  Pravishta  and  true  in  all  its  details. 

[Seal.]  Moslem  Community  of  the  Caza  of  Pravishta,  1331. 


APPENDIX  B 


Documents  Relating  to  Chapter  II 

THE  CONDUCT  OF  THE  BULGARIANS  IN  THE  SECOND  WAR 

A.    THE  DOXATO  AFFAIR 

No.  14.  EVIDENCE  OF  COMMANDER  CARDALE,  R.  N.  (Reprinted  from  the  Nation  of 
August  23,  1913). 

MY  DEAR  CASSAVETTI, — I  received  your  wire  yesterday,  and  have  taken  twenty-four  hours 
to  consider  my  reply.  You  see  my  reports  of  what  I  saw  at  Doxato  have  been  so  garbled  by 
reporters  and  others  that  I  am  naturally  rather  chary  of  saying  anything:  not  that  this 
applies  in  your  case,  of  course.  Also,  as  you  may  well  imagine,  the  horrors  of  that  place 
of  blood  have  so  got  on  my  nerves  that  I  hate  to  speak  of  them.  Still,  as  you  ask  me,  I 
will  tell  you  all  I  saw,  and  you  have  my  full  permission  to  make  use  of  all,  or  any  portion, 
of  this  letter  you  may  think  lit  for  the  purpose  of  publication. 

I  went  to  Kavala  immediately  after  the  Bulgarians  vacated  the  place;  my  duties  there 
I  need  not  go  into.  I  was  acting  under  the  orders  of  the  Greek  government,  which,  as  you 
know,  I  am  serving  at  present.  On  my  arrival  there  I  heard  many  stories  of  the  horrible 
occurrences  at  Doxato,  and  it  was  alleged  that  practically  all  the  inhabitants  had  been  massa- 
cred by  the  Bulgarian  troops  passing  through  on  their  retreat.  You  will  probably  understand 
that  having  had  a  surfeit  of  these  yarns,  and  knowing  that  war  is  not  fought  in  kid  gloves, 
1  did  not  believe  all  I  heard,  and  at  first  believed  that  it  was  purely  a  question  of  the  burning 
of  the  town  by  retreating  Bulgarians  enraged  by  their  reverses,  and  perhaps  a  few  regrettable 
incidents  where  noncombatants  had  been  killed  in  the  excitement  of  a  retreat.  However, 
after  seeing  wounded  and  mutilated  persons  being  brought  into  Kavala  from  Doxato  day  by 
day,  and  hearing  detailed  accounts  from  disinterested  persons  in  Kavala  of  all  nationalities, 
I  determined  to  go  to  Doxato  to  see  for  myself  what  had  occurred.  I  accordingly  took 
a  carriage  and  drove  there,  accompanied  by  a  Greek  naval  officer,  a  Greek  gentleman  of 
Kavala,  and  my  Greek  angeliophores.  The  distance  is  about  seventeen  miles.  I  have  not 
measured  it  on  the  map,  as  I  have  none  with  me  at  present,  but  I  estimate  it  at  that.  It 
took  us  about  three  and  one-half  hours  to  drive.  The  Bulgarians  must  have  left  Kavala. 
in  a  hurry,  as  they  did  not  even  strike  their  tents,  which  we  found  standing  some  miles  out- 
side on  the  Phillipi  road. 

At  each  village  we  passed  through  on  our  way  to  Doxato  we  found  some  of  the 
wretched  survivors  of  the  Doxato  massacre,  who  were  homeless,  but  did  not  wish  to  return 
to  their  ruined  homes  there  after  all  they  had  suffered.  Arriving  at  Doxato  we  found 
it  like  a  town  of  the  dead,  everything  burned  and  devastated,  and  such  an  odor  of  blood 
and  decomposed  bodies  as  I  never  hope  to  encounter  again.  Indeed,  five  minutes  before 
we  entered  the  town,  while  driving  through  the  plain,  the  stench  was  insupportable.  In  this 
plain  were  heaps  of  corpses  thinly  covered  with  sand,  where  the  survivors  had  tried,  for 
sanitary  reasons,  to  cover  up  their  dead,  but  they  were  all  too  few  to  do  so  thoroughly,  and 
for  all  practical  purposes  the  bodies  were  unburied.  On  entering  Doxato  we  found  a  few 
persons  who  were  still  living  among  the  ruins  of  their  former  homes,  and  from  them  we 
endeavored  to  get  an  account  of  what  had  occurred.  Practically  all  the  Greek  portion  of 


286  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

the  town  was  burned,  and  one  saw  everywhere  in  the  streets  charred  remains  of  what  had 
been  human  bodies.  Burial  in  the  town  had  been  impossible,  so  they  had  covered  the  bodies 
with  petroleum  and  disposed  of  them  in  that  way. 

In  some  of  the  gardens  and  courtyards  we  saw  children's  graves,  each  with  a  few  wild 
flowers  on  them,  but  they  do  not  appear  to  have  buried  any  except  the  children.  Poor 
souls !  after  the  horror  of  it  all,  one  wonders  how  they  buried  anyone.  The  Turkish  quarter 
was,  with  a  few  exceptions,  unburned.  According  to  the  accounts  of  the  survivors,  it  was 
there  that  the  greater  part  of  the  massacres  took  place.  I  saw  many  rooms  where  the  floors 
were  soaked  with  blood,  and  rugs,  mats,  and  cushions  were  covered  with  blood  and  human 
remains.  The  very  stones  in  the  courtyards  of  these  houses  were  stained  with  blood;  it  is 
said  that  most  of  those  who  were  killed  in  these  yards  were  stoned  to  death.  The  survivors 
showed  us  one  house  surrounded  by  a  high  wall  enclosing  a  courtyard  and  vineyard  where 
a  number  of  Greeks  were  put  to  death,  and  certainly  the  place  was  marked  with  blood- 
stains everywhere  in  the  yard  and  garden ;  hoes  and  other  agricultural  implements  stained 
with  blood  we  found  there  also,  and  the  steps  leading  into  an  outhouse  were  covered  with 
blood,  where  the  survivors  state  children  were  overtaken  and  killed.  I  was  informed,  apro- 
pos of  this  courtyard,  that  the  house  and  environs  were  the  property  of  a  Turk,  who,  on 
hearing  of  the  possibility  of  a  massacre,  had  sent  round  to  the  Greeks  of  Doxato  to  offer 
a  sanctuary  to  their  women  and  children,  and  that  after  upwards  of  120  were  assembled 
there,  he  and  several  of  his  compatriots,  under  the  direction  of  a  Bulgarian  officer,  had 
butchered  them  all !  This,  of  course,  is  simply  what  I  was  told  by  the  survivors.  I  can  only 
say  from  my  own  personal  observation  that  the  place  was  like  a  shambles,  and,  whoever  did 
the  deed,  there  must  have  been  a  very  considerable  number  killed  in  this  place.  In  fact,  the 
vineyard,  courtyard,  and  the  house  leading  out  of  them  reminded  me  forcibly  of  the  stones 
one  has  read  of  the  Cawnpore  massacres.  One  hears  of  places  reeking  with  blood;  with- 
out wishing  to  be  sensational,  this  little  town  did  literally  do  so.  They  told  us  that  Bulga- 
rian cavalry  riding  into  the  place  cut  down  some  of  the  inhabitants,  and  that  the  infantry, 
following  soon  after,  killed  all  they  found  in  the  streets,  but  that  after  that  the  greater  part 
of  the  massacres  were  carried  out  by  the  Turkish  inhabitants  incited  by  the  Bulgarian  offi- 
cers. How  far  this  is  true  I  can  not  say,  not  having  been  there  at  the  time  to  see  for  my- 
self, but  certainly  it  is  significant  that  the  Turkish  quarter  was  not  burned,  that  very  few 
Turks  seem  to  have  been  killed,  and  that  all  the  original  Turkish  inhabitants  have  fled, 
while  their  houses 'are  intact  but  bloodstained,  and  bearing  the  evidence  of  unspeakable  atro- 
cities. I  might,  perhaps,  give  you  more  details  of  the  evidence  of  atrocities 
which  took  place,  but  there  are  some  things  one  can  not  bring  oneself  to  speak  about. 
I  have  been  asked  to  estimate  the  number  who  were  killed  at  Doxato.  It  is  quite  impossible 
to  do  so,  as  many  who  are  supposed  to  have  been  killed  have,  I  understand,  since  been 
found,  having  escaped  at  the  time  the  massacres  took  place.  By  counting  the  bodies  I  saw, 
and  the  heaps  of  charred  remains  and  the  evidences  of  massacres  in  the  gardens  and  court- 
yards, I  estimated  that  the  number  killed  was  not  less  than  600,  and  that  the  greater  number 
of  these  were  women  and  children :  how  many  more  than  this  number  there  may  have  been 
it  is  impossible  to  say. — With  kindest  regards,  believe  me,  yours  very  sincerely, 

HUBERT  CARDALE. 

Hotel  Imperial,  Athens, 
August  4,  1913. 

No.   15.    EVIDENCE  OF  CAPTAIN   SOFRONIEV,   of  the  King's  Guard. 

"I  commanded  two  squadrons  of  the  Macedonian  cavalry,  a  regular  body  of  troops, 
consisting  Jargely  of  reservists.  On  July  10,  while  stationed  at  Otoligos,  about  20  kilometres 
from  Doxato,  I  sent  out  scouts.  They  reported  that  the  last  detachment  of  our  troops  re- 
tiring from  Kavala  had  been  fired  upon  by  the  villagers  of  Doxato,  some  of  whom  wore 


APPENDICES  287 

the  Greek  uniform.  They  killed  many  of  our  men  and  looted  the  convoy.  The  horse-cars 
escaped,  but  those  drawn  by  oxen  were  captured.  I  sent  Sub-Lieutenant  Pissarov  with 
thirty  troopers  to  report  on  what  was  happening  at  Doxato  and  to  reestablish  order.  My 
first  scout  then  returned  from  a  second  expedition,  and  reported  that  he  had  encountered 
a  large  force  of  Greek  insurgents  marching  from  Kavala,  and  that  he  had  learnt  from 
Turks  that  they  were  under  Greek  officers.  They  had  killed  all  the  Bulgarian  and  Turkish 
villagers  whom,  they  captured  on  the  way.  He  saw  beheaded  children  and  women  whose 
bodies  had  been  ripped  open.  There  was  a  general  panic  among  all  the  population  of  the 
country  side.  (We  saw  the  original  penciled  note  of  this  scout's  report).  Lieutenant  Pissa- 
rov reported  that  Greek  troops  were  quartered  near  the  ruins  of  the  bridge  at  Alexandra. 
The  Greeks  were  killing  without  pity  men,  women  and  children.  Doxato  was  strongly 
occupied  and  two  Greek  battalions  with  mountain  guns  were  marching  up  from  Valtchista. 
He  had  assisted  the  local  Bulgarian  and  Turkish  population  to  flee.  [We  saw  the  original 
text  of  this  report.]  I  then  reported  to  the  commander  of  my  division,  General  Delov; 
he  ordered  me  to  go  at  once  to  Doxato  to  make  those  responsible  prisoners,  and  to  re- 
store order.  I  started  on  the  night  of  July  13,  but  lost  my  way  in  the  dark  and  found 
myself  at  dawn  between  Doiran  and  Doxato.  I  had  with  me  two  mounted  squadrons  of 
about  250  men.  The  enemy  opened  fire  at  once  and  three  scouts  whom  I  sent  to  reconnoitre 
their  position  were  killed.  The  heaviest  fire  came  from  the  edge  of  the  village  Doxato. 
The  plain  was  black  with  people  looking  for  cover.  I  sent  one  squadron  towards  Doxato, 
and  the  other,  under  my  own  command,  advanced  toward  Doiran.  Firing  continued  for 
about  two  hours,  seventeen  of  my  squadron  were  killed  and  twenty-four  wounded.  We 
eventually  charged  with  the  sabre.  The  enemy,  who  were  all  armed,  kept  their  ranks  and 
awaited  our  onset.  At  least  150  of  them  were  killed  in  the  charge,  possibly  as  many  as 
300.  Many  surrendered.  I  then  heard  that  the  Greek  column  from  Valtchista  was  march- 
ing to  Alistrati.  I  therefore  decided  to  withdraw  and  hurried  to  join  the  column  of  Lieu- 
tenant Colonel  Barnev.  I  left  the  Turks,  who  had  hurried  up  from  neighboring  villages, 
to  guard  my  prisoners,  and  told  them  to  disarm  the  people  of  Doxato,  and  to  keep  order. 
They  armed  themselves  with  rifles  and  cartridges,  chiefly  Martinis  and  Gras,  taken  from  the 
Greek  dead.  We  had  had  no  earlier  dealings  with  these  Turks,  but  they  always  helped  our 
scouts  with  news.  Next  day,  July  14,  we  fought  a  battle  to  allow  the  peasant  fugitives 
to  reach  the  mountains.  The  fleeing  Turks  from  Doxato  told  us  that  the  Greeks  had 
killed  all  the  Bulgarians  and  Turks  whom  they  found  in  Doxato.  I  asked  them  why  they 
did  not  flee  in  time.  They  replied,  "Because  we  were  giving  ourselves  up  to  rapine  and 
vengeance."  My  scouts  reported  this  day  that  a  terrible  thing  had  happened  in  Doxato. 
The  Turks  began  to  massacre  and  then  the  Greeks  came  and  massacred  the  Turks;  the 
fields  were  covered  with  bodies.  Next  day,  July  15,  the  Greeks  destroyed  the  purely  Bul- 
garian village  of  Guredjik.  The  villagers  were  unable  to  flee,  and  were  massacred  almost 
to  a  man;  three  or  four  escaped  and  gave  me  the  news." 

In  reply  to  questions  the  Captain  stated,  that  he  was  not  himself  actually  inside  the 
town  of  Doxato.  Probably  some  of  the  infantry  may  have  gone  there,  but  of  this  he  can  not 
speak  with  certainty;  he  can  give  his  word  of  honor  as  an  officer  that  the  men  of  his  two 
squadrons  killed  no  peaceful  citizens. 

From  a  written  deposition  by  Captain  Sofroniev,  we  take  the  following  passage : 

On  returning  to  the  neighborhood  of  Doxato  [from  attacking  the  distant  body 
of  insurgents]  towards  2.30  p.m.  we  saw  the  Turks  who  had  previously  fled,  and 
were  now  returning  to  the  village  in  a  state  of  savage  excitement.  [Exaltation 
forouche.]  As  we  had  no  time  to  spare,  we  told  them  to  gather  the  rifles  scattered 
about.  At  the  same  moment  we  saw  the  village  take  fire.  I  do  not  know  who 
caused  that.  • 


288  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

No.  16.     EVIDENCE  OF  MR.  GIVKO  DOBREV,  Civil  Governor  of  the  Drama  District. 

The  population  of  the  Drama  district  totaled  18,000,  of  whom  13,000  were  Moslems, 
and  of  these  latter  3,000  were  pomaks  and  the  remainder  Turks.  Doxato,  with  two 
neighboring  villages  formed  a  Greek  oasis  in  a  compact  mass  of  Turks,  with  whom  it  was 
always  in  conflict.  It  thus  naturally  became  the  center  of  the  Greek  insurgent  movement. 
During  the  first  war,  in  the  latter  half  of  October,  the  Greeks,  acting  as  allies  under  the 
shelter  of  our  troops,  began  to  take  their  private  revenge  upon  the  Turks,  killing,  looting 
and  violating.  The  administration  had  been  organized  from  among  the  local  notables, 
chiefly  Greeks,  more  especially  the  Bishop,  who  knew  of  all  these  atrocities.  The  appetite 
for  robbery  grew,  and  the  Greeks  began  to  enforce  declarations  from  the  Turks  assigning 
their  lands.  The  Bulgarian  government  accordingly,  with  a  view  of  protecting  the  Turks, 
published  a  general  edict  declaring  all  contracts  regarding  land  made  during  the  period  of 
the  war  invalid.  I  reached  Drama  on  December  3,  though  the  place  had  been  taken  on 
November  5.  I  -was  too  late  to  prevent  much  injustice  to  the  Turks,  but  I  returned  their 
mosques  to  them  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  the  Greeks,  and  helped  them  to  get  back  some 
part  of  their  stolen  goods. 

On  July  8,  the  Bulgarian  officials  left  Kavala,  and  the  place  remained  for  a  week  with- 
out regular  government.  A  reconnaissance  was  sent  on  July  10,  to  learn  what  was  happen- 
ing in  Kavala;  and  in  the  course  of  it  one  trooper  was  killed  and  one  wounded  at  Doxato. 
A  larger  party  was  sent  out  on  the  llth,  numbering  about  thirty  men,  and  this  also  was 
fired  upon  from  Doxato.  On  the  night  of  July  11,  a  larger  party,  composed  of  two  squad- 
rons of  cavalry,  two  companies  of  infantry,  and  four  guns.  [NOTE. — There  is  here  a  dis- 
crepancy of  one  day  in  the  dates  given  by  Captain  Sofroniev  and  Mr.  Dobrev;  the 
dates  of  the  former  are  accurate].  There  was  now  a  regular  insurrection  in  Doxato,  which 
aimed  at  cutting  off  Drama  from  the  shore.  The  cavalry  surrounded  Doxato.  The  infan- 
try were  received  with  a  volley,  whereupon  the  commander  threatened  to  use  artillery  and 
thrice  demanded  the  surrender  of  the  town.  When  the  artillery  began  to  fire,  five  to  six 
hundred  armed  men,  and  all  the  local  population  took  to  flight.  Our  cavalry  pursued  them. 
The  village  was  set  on  fire  by  our  shells,  and  an  enormous  explosion  took  place,  as  if  a 
depot  of  ammunition  had  been  set  on  fire.  The  explosion  continued  intermittently  for 
quite  an  hour.  The  Bulgarian  infantry  was  composed  largely  of  Moslems,  from  the  Bul- 
garian kingdom.  It  became  excited  during  the  explosion  of  the  magazine  and  began  killing 
indiscriminately.  It  is  possible  that  children  were  killed.  I  arrived  on  the  afternoon  of 
July  12  [13?]  and  found  that  the  local  Turks  were  going  about  from  house  to  house,  rob- 
bing. I  saw  one  house  with  its  door  half  open,  and  a  woman  killed  inside.  The  house  was 
pillaged.  I  saw  a  Turk  standing. on  a  ladder  in  the  act  of  pouring  petroleum  from  a 
tin  over  the  house  in  order  to  set  it  on  fire.  I  ordered  him  to  stop,  but  others  began  to  do 
the  same  thing  in  other  parts  of  the  town.  I  again  visited  Doxato  at  2  p.m.  next  day,  July 
13  [14?].  The  houses  were  still  burning  and  most  of  the  people  had  fled  to  the  neighboring 
village  of  Tchataldja.  The  rest  ran  to  meet  me.  There  were  women  among  them,  of  whom 
one  had  been  wounded  by  a  trooper's  saber.  I  took  her  to  Mr.  Lavalette's  farm  to  be  cured. 
Everything  was  quiet  in  Tchataldja.  Its  mayor  and  notables  had  asked  me  on  the  previous 
day  to  send  soldiers  to  their  village,  since  the  insurgents  of  Doxato  were  trying  to  induce 
them  to  join  in  their  rising,  and  were  threatening  them.  I  sent  sixty  men.  Later,  I  sent 
police,  on  July  14  [15?]  to  bury  the  corpses  at  Doxato.  They  counted  300  killed.  While 
this  was  going  on  the  Greek  army  arrived,  marching  not  from  Kavala  but  from  Ziliahovo. 
Some  of  my  policemen  were  killed  by  the  Greek  population. 

No.  i6a.  DEPOSITION  (COMMUNICATED)  OF  MR.  MILEV,  Sub-Lieutenant  of  Reserves,  for- 
merly Mayor  of  Philippopolis  and  Prefect  of  Stara-Zagora,  who  Commanded  a  Detach- 
ment of  Infantry  at  Doxato. 

On  the  morning  of  July  13,  a  detachment  comprised  of  cavalry,  infantry  and  artillery 


APPENDICES 

marched  from  Drama  toward  Kavala  in  order  to  watch  the  movements  of  the  andartes. 
At  a  distance  of  one  kilometer  from  Doxato,  we  were  received  with  rifle  shots.  This  fu- 
sillade became  hotter  as  we  approached  the  village.  Parliamentaries  were  sent  in  advance,, 
but  the  Greeks  refused  to  receive  them  and  went  on  firing.  Then  the  infantry  formed  in 
line  of  battle  and  continued  its  march,  but  without  firing.  At  500  paces  from  the  village 
the  order  was  given  to  answer  the  Greek  fire,  and  to  aim  specially  at  the  school,  which  was 
the  headquarters  of  the  andartes,  and  over  which  the  Greek  flag  was  flying.  The  firing  con- 
tinued for  two  hours,  after  which  the  andartes  left  the  school,  set  fire  to  it,  and  fled  towards 
Kavala.  When  the  infantry  entered  Doxato,  it  realized  that  not  all  the  andartes  had  left 
the  village,  for  several  of  them  continued  to  fire  on  our  troops  from  the  Greek  houses. 
Then  the  fighting  began  in  the  village  and  lasted  till  midday,  when  the  resistance  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Doxato  was  broken.  Only  twenty-seven  andaries  were  killed  in  the  village;, 
the  rest  succeeded  in  escaping  toward  Kavala  and  the  neighboring  hills. 

The  people  of  Doxato  had  succeeded  in  effecting  the  escape  of  most  of  their  women 
and  children,  who  left  on  July  11  for  Kavala.  After  the  battle,  the  Bulgarian  infantry 
found  only  about  a  hundred  women  and  children  in  the  village,  and  these  were  by  order 
placed  in  several  houses  and  courtyards,  and  protected  by  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  against 
the  local  Turkish  and  gypsy  population,  who  from  the  beginning  of  the  fight  were  burn- 
ing, pillaging  and  violating  women  and  girls.  Two  Turks  were  caught  in  the  act,  and  were 
executed  on  the  spot  by  Bulgarian  soldiers.  The  Bulgarian  army  has  therefore  no  crime  on 
its  conscience.  If  women  and  children  were  killed  in  some  isolated  parts  of  the  village  (it 
was  one  long  street,  a  kilometer  in  length)  that  was  the  work  of  local  Turks  and  gypsies. 

It  was  afterwards  proved  that  the  andartes  under  the  instigation  of  Greek  soldiers  and 
officers  deliberately  set  fire  to  the  school,  in  order  to  burn  some  Bulgarians  alive,  who 
were  shut  up  in  it,  to  the  number  of  about  twenty.  These  were  laborers  arrested  in  the 
fields,  and  were  found  bound  hand  and  foot  by  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  who  delivered  them, 
after  being  kept  four  days  without  food. 

The  army  left  Doxato  at  2  p.m.,  leaving  twenty  soldiers  behind  to  keep  order. 

No.  i6b.  COLONEL  BARNEV,  who  directed  the  operations  against  the  evzones  and 
andartes  round  Doxato,  has  made  the  following  deposition  [communicated] : 

On  the  morning  of  July  13  the  two  squadrons  of  cavalry  which  I  commanded  reached 
the  neighborhood  of  Doxato,  and  there  I  found  other  Bulgarian  detachments  sent  for  the 
same  purpose.  At  about  800  paces  from  Doxato,  I  met  an  orderly  with  dispatches.  As  I 
was  engaged  with  the  orderly,  I  directed  Captain  Sofroniev  to  continue  the  forward  march 
in  the  direction  of  Doxato-Kavala,  after  which  I  would  rejoin  the  troops.  I  noticed  that 
all  the  country  round  the  village  was  occupied  by  armed  men,  who  lost  no  time  in  opening 
fire.  The  company  under  Sub-Lieutenant  Milev,  which  was  advancing  to  the  south  in  a 
line  parallel  to  ours,  changed  front  towards  Doxato,  in  the  presence  of  this  unexpected 
attack,  formed  in  order  of  battle  and  advanced  on  the  village;  for  the  fire  was  directed 
against  it,  and  threatened  it  seriously.  The  situation  demanded  first  defence,  and  then  the 
energetic  pursuit  of  the  andartes.  The  appearance  of  the  squadrons  of  cavalry  put  the 
andartes  to  flight,  and  they  were  forced  to  leave  their  positions  and  seek  refuge  on  the 
heights  to  the  northeast  of  Doxato,  where  they  entrenched  themselves.  Meanwhile  other 
troops  and  andartes  were  reported  coming  from  Kavala.  In  presence  of  these  insurgents, 
who  in  their  turn  opened  a  heavy  fire  upon  us,  we  were  obliged  to  attack  them,  for  we  were 
exposed  to  a  murderous  fire.  Part  of  them  retired  to  the  same  heights,  from  whence  they 
kept  up  their  fire.  The  cavalry  charged  then.  After  the  pursuit  I  gave  the  order  to  attend 
to  the  wounded,  to  carry  them  into  shelter,  and  to  send  them  away  by  the  road  Dadem- 
Tchiflik.  We  had  hardly  passed  the  village  of  Doiran  when  Sub-Lieutenant  Tanev  sent  me 
an  orderly  to  inform  me  that  andartes  coming  from  Kavala  were  advancing;  that  they  had 
already  occupied  the  heights  near  the  ruins  of  Alexandros;  and  that  the  road  to  Dadem- 


290  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Tchiflik  was  also  cut.  I  sent  Captain  Sofroniev  in  haste  in  the  direction  in  question ;  the 
insurgents  fled  to  Kavala.  At  this  moment  I  received  word  from  my  scouts  that  a  Greek 
column  was  reported  marching  from  Valtchista  in  the  direction  of  the  station  Anghista- 
Alistrati.  Seeing  our  retreat  threatened,  I  gave  orders  to  return  and  occupy  our  original 
positions  (the  pass  of  Prossetchen). 

From  information  received,  the  local  Moslems,  moved  by  vengeance  against  the  Greeks, 
gave  themselves  up  to  excesses  till  midnight.  It  is  these  excesses  which  have  been  attrib- 
uted by  the  Greek  press  to  Bulgarian  soldiers. 

All  the  descriptions  of  the  alleged  misconduct  of  my  troops  at  Doxato  are  false.  I 
deny  these  accusations,  and  affirm  that  the  Bulgarian  soldier  has  given  every  proof  of 
tolerance  and  discipline. 

B.     EVENTS  AT  SERRES 

No.  17.  [Note.  In  the  semi-official  Greek  pamphlet  Atrocites  Bulgares,  published  by  the 
director  of  the  university  at  Athens,  the  narrative  published  by  Signer  Magrini  in  the  Secolo 
is  adopted  as  an  authoritative  statement  of  the  Greek  case.  Signor  Magrini  states  that 
he  was  present  at  the  inquiry  conducted  at  Serres  by  the  consuls  general  of  Austria  and 
Italy,  who  had  come  from  Salonica  to  hear  witnesses  on  the  spot] 

We  were  able  to  reconstitute  the  eventful  week  through  which  the  Macedonian  town 
passed.  On  Friday,  July  4,  the  Bulgarian  advocate  adviser  attached  to  the  Italian  consul, 
informed  him  that  the  following  order  had  arrived  :l 

"If  it  appears  that  Serres  is  lost  to  the  Bulgarians,  destroy  the  town." 

On  the  evening  of  the  same  day  General  Ivanov,  beaten  at  Lahana,  passed  through  Serres 
station  on  his  way  to  Demir-Hissar.  On  Saturday,  July  5,  the  shops  and  houses  were 
pillaged ;  seventeen  notables  were  massacred  ;2  four  other  notables,  among  them  the  head 
master  of  the  gymnasium,  the  director  of  the  hospital,  and  the  manager  of  the  Orient  bank, 
were  led  outside  the  town  and  killed  with  bayonet  thrusts.3 

Thereafter  General  Voulkov,  Governor  of  Macedonia,  and  all  the  Bulgarian  officials, 
soldiers,  and  gendarmes  left  hurriedly.  On  Sunday  and  Monday  the  town  was  tranquil 
in  expectation  of  the  arrival  of  the  Greek  army;  the  inhabitants  armed  in  order  to  repel 
a  probable  attack  by  the  comitadjis.  On  Tuesday  and  Wednesday  skirmishes  took  place  be- 
tween the  inhabitants  and  groups  of  soldiers  who  attempted  to  enter  the  town  and  to  set 
it  on  fire.  On  Thursday  the  inhabitants,  foreseeing  the  catastrophe,  sent  a  deputation  to 
Nigrita  to  demand  help,  but  it  was  too  late.4 

With  the  Austrian  consul  general,  I  questioned  the  Moslem  Ahmed-Hafiz,  formerly  at- 
tached to  the  Bulgarian  police ;  he  made  the  following  declarations : 

On  Thursday  evening  the  Bulgarian  officer  Monev  appeared  at  my  house  and 
told  me,  that  the  Bulgarians  were  going  to  burn  Serres  next  day.  He  invited  me  to 
join  in  the  pillage  and  the  burning  with  a  band  of  Moslems.  I  refused.  Then  Monev 
asked  me  for  petroleum;  I  replied  that  I  had  none.  On  Thursday,  during  the  night, 
four  guns  were  posted  on  the  hill  Dutli,  which  commands  Serres,  and  next  morning 
about  eight  o'clock  the  bombardment  began  and  created  an  enormous  panic.  Soon 
more  than  500  infantry,  several  groups  of  cavalry,  numbering  ten  each,  and  fifty 


*We  can  discover  no  confirmation  of  this  statement. 

2This  may  refer  to  the  thirteen  persons  murdered  in  the  prison.     Clearly  not  all  of 
them  were  notables. 

8The  manager  of  the  Orient  bank  is  alive  and  well,  and  was  never  wounded. 
4Observe  that  all  mention  of  the  schoolhouse  massacre  is  suppressed. 


APPENDICES 


291 


comitadjis  entered  the  town,  armed  with  bombs,  and  the  atrocities  began.  Among 
the  soldiers  several  officers  were  recognized,  including  Dr.  Yankov,  secretary  of  Gen- 
eral Voulkov  and  councilor  of  the  government,  and  the  late  chief  of  police  Kara- 
giosov  and  Orfaniev,  chief  of  the  gendarmerie  of  Serres.  Clearly  there  was  a 
well-arranged  plan.  The  doors  of  the  houses  and  shops  were  opened  with  sticks 
tipped  with  iron,  with  which  the  soldiers  were  provided.  The  buildings  were  entered 
and  pillaged;  the  booty  was  loaded  on  some  hundred  wagons,  specially  got  together 
for  this  purpose.  Then  the  houses,  emptied  one  by  one,  were  sprinkled  with  petro- 
leum and  other  inflammable  substances  and  fire  put  to  them.  By  an  application  of 
the  law  of  the  economy  of  effort,  in  each  group  of  three  houses,  only  the  middle 
one  was  set  on  fire,  clearly  in  the  belief  that  the  wind,  which  was  blowing  with 
violence,  would  complete  the  work  of  destruction.  The  soldiers  fired  on  the  inhab- 
itants who  attempted  to  save  the  burning  houses,  consulates,  and  foreign  buildings. 

In  the  quarter  Kamenilia  twenty-eight  persons,  among  them  Albert  Biro,  a  Hun- 
garian, were  massacred.  The  Austrian  vice  consul  with  the  people  who  had  sought 
refuge  in  the  consulate  was  carried  off  to  the  mountain,  his  magnificent  house  was 
pillaged  and  then  burned.  All  the  buildings  protected  by  foreign  flags  were  treated 
in  the  same  fashion.  At  the  Orient  bank  an  attempt  was  made  to  open  the  safe  by 
means  of  a  bomb,  but  it  failed,  and  the  assailants  had  to  content  themselves  with 
burning  the  building.  The  Italian  consular  agency,  a  well-built  house,  surrounded 
by  a  vast  garden,  was  saved  almost  miraculously  from  destruction;  it  is  the  only 
house  saved  in  a  whole  quarter  which  was  burnt  down,  and  the  Italian  consular 
agent  Menahem  Simantov  explained  to  us,  that  at  noon  on  Friday  several  infantry 
soldiers  ordered  him  to  open  his  house,  in  which  600  people  had  taken  refuge,  mainly 
women  and  children.  He  showed  himself  at  a  window,  the  soldiers  demanded  £T400. 
His  knowledge  of  Bulgarian  enabled  him  to  save  them.  He  persuaded  the  soldiers 
to  be  content  with  £54  and  to  withdraw.  The  presence  of  the  young  Bulgarian  Mav- 
rodiev,  says  Simantov,  saved  the  agency  from  catastrophe.  None  the  less  in  the 
course  of  the  day  it  was  necessary  to  buy  off  other  soldiers  with  a  fresh  ransom. 
The  agency,  filled  with  refugees,  was  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  flames ;  we  were 
barely  able  to  protect  it. 

No.  170.  STATEMENT  OF  MR.  ZLATKOS,  Vice  Consul  of  Austria  Hungary  at  Serres: 
(Atrocites  Bulgares,  p.  23.) 

On  Friday  toward  noon  soldiers  of  the  regular  [Bulgarian]  army  attacked  my  house, 
forcing  me  to  go  out  into  the  street  with  my  family  and  a  large  number  of  persons,  who 
had  fled  from  the  massacre  and  the  fire  and  had  taken  refuge  with  me.  Immediately  there- 
after we  were  led  up  to  the  mountain.  All  the  children  and  women  who  accompanied  me 
were  threatened  with  death,  and  it  is  only  by  paying  large  ransoms  that  we  were  released. 
I  am  safe  and  well,  but  as  my  house  fell  a  prey  to  the  flames  I  am,  with  my  family,  with- 
out shelter  or  clothing.  All  our  subjects  who  live  here  are  in  the  same  situation  as  myself. 

No.  18.  THE  SCHOOT.HOUSE  MASSACRE  (see  also  Nos.  56,  57,  58).  Evidence  of  Demetri 
Karanfilov,  formerly  a  dairyman  and  afterwards  a  Bulgarian  gendarme  at  Serres. 

On  Saturday,  July  5,  the  Bulgarian  army  left  the  town.  I  was  unable  to  go  with  it 
since  my  wife  was  ill.  Everything  was  quiet  until  Monday.  There  then  arrived  Greek 
andartes  (Insurgents)  with  villagers  and  some  soldiers.  I  hid  and  saw  very  little 
of  what  went  on.  On  Tuesday,  shots  were  fired  at  my  house  and  I  heard  voices 
say,  "Bulgarians  live  here."  They  came  in  and  searched  for  arms.  There  were  one  or  two 
soldiers  among  about  twelve  men.  I  was  then  taken  to  the  Archbishop's  palace  and  brought 
before  a  civil  commission,  which  included  the  Archbishop  of  Serres  (an  old  man)  and  a 
young  bishop,  who  presided.  The  soldiers  said  to  me  on  the  way,  "We've  come  to  exter- 
minate the  Bulgarians."  The  bishop  asked  me  who  and  what  I  was.  I  replied,  "A  Bulga- 
rian gendarme."  I  was  searched  and  five  francs  were  taken  from  me.  I  was  then  taken  to 
a  room  of  the  girls'  high  school,  and  was  kept  there  for  four  days,  guarded  by  both  sol- 
diers and  civilians,  who  came  both  from  Serres  and  from  the  villages.  Many  other  Bulga- 
rians were  with  me.  We  received  bread  once  a  day,  and  were  not  at  first  maltreated.  Ten 


292  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

people  were  taken  up  to  a  room  above  and  never  came  back.  We  heard  cries,  and  believe 
they  were  killed.  I  was  ordered  with  three  other  men  to  carry  out  two  corpses.  They  were 
covered  with  blood,  and  I  believe  that  they  were  Bulgarians  of  Serres.  On  Friday  morning, 
a  soldier  came  in  and  said:  "Don't  fear,  our  army  is  coming,  but  do  all  that  we  tell  you." 
So  we  were  rather  relieved.  Then  those  in  our  room  were  bound  two  by  two,  taken  up- 
stairs and  were  never  seen  again.  When  my  turn  came;  I  was  bound  with  another  man 
taken  up  to  a  room  which  was  full  of  corpses.  There  were  quite  fifty  of  them;  you  couldn't 
see  the  floor,  some  were  lying  in  heaps,  and  there  was  blood  all  over  the  place.  I  was 
then  struck  with  a  Martini  bayonet  on  the  back  of  the  head  and  through  the  neck  and  on 
the  shoulder.  [We  saw  these  wounds  and  also  a  hole  in  the  man's  coat.]  The  blow  on  my 
shoulder  was  dealt  me  by  Christo,  a  neighbor  of  mine.  I  do  not  know  who  the  others  were. 
When  I  fell,  another  fell  on  top  of  me;  I  fainted  and  came  to  some  time  afterwards. 
1  noticed  that  somebody  else  was  moving,  and  soon  five  or  six  were  stirring.  The  Greeks 
had  all  gone  and  we  heard  a  fusillade  outside.  The  town  was  already  in  flames  and  soon 
the  school  would  be  burnt  also.  We  went  out  of  this  room  and  saw  another  room  heaped 
with  corpses.  Some  were  still  alive  and  groaning.  The  doors  were  open  and  we  made  up 
•our  minds  to  go  out,  crossed  the  street,  went  up  the  hill,  and  met  the  Bulgarian  soldiers, 
•who  tended  our  wounds.  I  have  had  no  news  of  my  wife  to  this  day. 

No.  19.    EVIDENCE  OF  CHRISTO  DIMITROV,  Miller  of  Serres. 

On  July  5  I  left  my  mill  on  the  advice  of  a  Bulgarian  soldier,  and  went  to  my  house 

•to  fetch  my  wife  and  children.  There  were  shouts  of  Zeto!  (the  Greek  cry)  all  round,  and 
neighbors  shouted  "the  Greek  army  is  coming."  My  neighbors  bade  me  have  no  fear  and 
undertook  to  save  me.  I  slept  that  night  at  home,  and  saw  next  morning  a  crowd  of 

•Greeks  and  Turks  in  the  street,  who  shouted  that  they  would  destroy  everything  Bulgarian. 
I  saw  them  arrest  two  men  from  Dibra,  Marko  and  Christo.  Three  Greeks  returned  to 
Christo's  house  and  came  out  with  his  wife  half  an  hour  later;  she  was  crying  "Is  there 
no  one  to  save  me!"  The  crowd  in  the  street  was  shouting,  "Show  us  the  Bulgarian  houses." 
On  the  6th,  I  went  to  a  Turk's  house  for  hiding.  On  the  8th  the  crowd  came  again  shout- 
ing, "There  are  still  Bulgarians  here."  My  neighbors  tried  to  save  me,  but  in  the  end  when 
the  crowd  threatened  them,  they  advised  me  to  go  quietly  to  the  Archbishop's  palace,  as  I 
had  done  no  harm.  The  neighbors  came  with  me  to  give  evidence  before  the  Archbishop 
in  my  favor.  But  I  was  taken  straight  to  the  school  and  robbed  on  arrival  of  my  money 

i  (5  Napoleons)  while  soldiers  stood  around.  I  spent  the  day  there  with  about  twenty  other 
Bulgarians.  That  evening  I  was  bound  and  taken  up  to  a  room  where  eleven  dead  bodies 
were  lying  on  the  floor.  I  was  ordered  to  lie  down ;  my  hands  and  feet  were  bound  be- 

.hind  me;  I  was  heavily  struck  and  left.  I  talked  with  two  other  men  in  the  room  who 
were  still  alive,  including  my  neighbor  Christo  of  Debra,  and  each  asked  the  other  "What 

•  crime  have  we  committed?"  I  recognized  two  Greeks  among  our  jailers,  a  certain  Janmaki, 
brother  of  the  Greek  Consul  Cavass,  and  one  Taki,  son  of  the  innkeeper  Peter.  They  said 
to  an  evzone,  "We  must  not  leave  one  alive."  They  then  beat  Petro,  Christo,  and  Procop  to 

.  death  with  a  big  stick.  Another  Greek  civilian  then  came  in  and,  pointing  to  me,  said : 
"Fourteen  are  enough ;  we  can't  bury  them  all.  Let  us.  leave  this  one  till  tomorrow."  They 
evidently  reckoned  that  they  could  only  bury  fourteen  in  a  night.  The  others  were  then 
taken  out,  and  Petro,  who  was  not  quite  dead,  was  forced  to  walk.  "We'll  kill  him  down 

•there,"  they  said.  I  was  left  alone,  bound.  On  Thursday  morning,  July  19,  I  was  taken 
down  to  another  room,  where  were  some  men  from  Strumnitsa;  I  asked  and  received 
some  bread  and  water.  Eight  men  were  then  brought  in  from  the  villages.  The  Greeks  all 
the  time  kept  shouting,  "Long  live  King  Constantine !"  On  Friday  morning,  July  11,  my 
wife  arrived,  and  brought  me  some  bread,  some  tobacco  and  three  francs.  Women  look- 
ing out  of  the  neighboring  houses  threatened  me,  "You  Bulgarian  dogs,  we'll  kill  you  all, 

vto  the  last  man."     Then  four  Bulgarian  soldiers  were  brought  in  as  prisoners,  three  Bui- 


APPENDICES  293 

garian  comitadjis  and  the  secretary  of  the  mayor  of  the  village  of  Topoleni.  About  eleven 
o'clock  I  heard  the  Greek  women  of  the  quarter  calling  out  to  the  men,  "Flee!  for  the  Bul- 
garians are  coming,  and  they  will  kill  you."  About  sixty  surviving  prisoners  were  brought 
together;  about  fifty  other  Greeks  came  in,  including  some  evzones,  who  bound  the  prison- 
ers and  took  them  out  two  by  two.  Mine  was  the  sixth  turn.  I  was  led  to  an  upper  room, 
ordered  to  lie  down,  and  received  four  wounds.  I  then  groaned  and  feigned  death.  [We 
saw  the  scars  of  his  wounds  and  the  holes  in  his  coat.]  Others  were  then  brought  in  and 
killed.  I  heard  a  sort  of  gurgling,  like  the  sound  which  sheep  make  when  they  are  being 
killed,  in  the  room  next  door.  Presently  I  heard  firing  outside,  and  the  Greeks  went  down 
to  fight,  and  left  us  alone.  I  saw  that  all  was  clear.  Ten  of  us  were  alive  and  rose  to  go 
out,  but  two,  Tlia  Penev  and  Simon,  fell  at  once  and  could  not  proceed.  Eight  of  us  got 
safely  out  to  the  hills  and  reached  the  Bulgarian  soldiers.  I  have  heard  no  news  of  my 
wife  since  that  day. 

No.  20.    EVIDENCE  OF  DIMITRI  LAZAROV,   of  Moklen,  near  Serres. 

Seven  men  were  sent  from  our  village  by  the  mayor  to  see  if  the  Bulgarians  were  still 
in  possession  of  Serres.  Three  gendarmes  were  among  us,  and  all  of  us  had  our  rifles.  [He 
gave  the  names  of  all  seven.]  We  were  arrested  near  the  village  of  Soubashkoi  by  about 
one  hundred  armed  Greek  villagers.  They  kept  us  for  five  days  in  the  village  schoolhouse; 
ropes  were  arranged  from  the  rafters  to  hang  us.  Then  firing  was  heard  in  the  neigh- 
borhood and  the  Greeks,  in  fear  lest  Bulgarian  troops  should  arrive,  took  the  ropes  down. 
There  were  five  Bulgarian  soldiers  prisoners  in  the  same  place.  I  saw  four  of  these  shot 
in  the  garden  of  the  school  in  daylight;  the  fifth  begged  hard  for  his  life  and  was  saved. 
We  were  now  bound  with  this  soldier  in  groups  of  four  and  were  taken  to  the  Bishop's  pal- 
ace. I  had  one  hundred  piastres  in  money,  and  of  the  others,  one  had  £T2  and  another  £T14. 
We  were  taken  before  a  priest,  who  was  alone  in  a  room.  I  think  he  was  a  bishop;  the 
evzones  took  our  money,  and  put  it  on  the  table  before  the  priest,  who  put  it  in  a  drawer. 
We  asked  for  water.  They  gave  it  us,  but  the  evzones  struck  us  in  the  face  before  the 
bishop.  He  asked  us  no  questions,  and  we  were  taken  to  the  school.  The  evzones  beat  us 
and  mocked  us  with  shouts  of  "hourrah !"  (the  Bulgarian  cry).  The  gendarmes  were  taken 
to  a  room  apart.  In  our  room  there  were  ten  dead  bodies;  these  were  afterwards  removed 
by  Turkish  porters.  One  of  the  gendarmes  died  this  day  from  beating.  We  were  stripped 
perfectly  naked.  Next  day,  Friday,  July  11,  forty- four  new  Bulgarian  prisoners  were 
brought  in.  [The  witness,  like  all  Balkan  peasants,  reckoned  the  dates  from  the  nearest 
church  festival.]  About  midday  we  heard  cannon — perhaps  twenty  shots.  Then  we  could 
see  from  the  window  that  the  town  was  in  flames.  Three  soldiers  wearing  the  Greek  uni- 
form came  into  our  room,  but  one  of  them  wore  vlach  trousers.  They  took  four  prisoners 
out  to  another  room.  We  heard  cries.  The  same  three  then  came  back  with  their  hands 
and  bayonets  covered  with  blood;  we  tried  but  failed  to  get  out  by  breaking  the  windows. 
I  was  taken  out  almost  the  last  to  a  room  full  of  dead  bodies.  The  vlach  struck  me  two 
blows  on  the  head  and  two  on  the  neck,  and  I  fell.  [We  saw  his  wounds,  the  skull  was 
deeply  indented.]  Another  man  fell  on  top  of  me  and  I  lost  consciousness.  When  I  came 
to  I  heard  rifle  firing.  Four  men  rose  with  me.  Angel  Dimov  of  Carlukavo  is  the  only 
one  I  knew.  We  found  water,  which  the  butchers  had  used  to  wash  their  hands.  We  heard 
the  Bulgarian  cry  "hourrah,"  went  out,  and  found  a  Bulgarian  soldier  who  got  a  mule  for 
me.  The  whole  town  was  on  fire. 

No.  21,    EVIDENCE  OF  BLAGOI  PETROV,  of  Serres,  mason,  aged  eighteen  years. 

On  July  10  four  citizens  of  Serres,  whom  I  knew,  dressed  in  Greek  uniform,  took  me 
to  the  schoolhouse  prison.  About  one  hundred  others  were  there.  We  were  beaten  with 
the  butts  of  their  rifles  and  most  of  us  had  our  hands  tied  to  something,  such  as  the  pillars. 
An  armed  Greek  civilian  came  in  and  said,  "We  must  not  kill  these  young  lads,  but  we'll 


294  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

give  them  a  beating."  They  insisted  that  I  should  stay  to  see  my  father  killed;  they  even 
promised  to  give  me  my  liberty  at  once  if  I  would  kill  my  father  with  my  own  hand.  About 
one  o'clock  I  saw  him  killed  with  five  blows  from  the  butt  of  a  rifle;  many  others  were 
killed  at  the  same  time.  Five  youths  were  released.  The  names  of  my  father's  murderers 
are,  Teochar,  a  mechanic,  and  Athanasios  Petrov,  a  tobacco  worker. 

No.  22.    EVIDENCE  OF  DR.  KLUGMANN,  Russian  civil  doctor,  employed  at  Serres  in  the 
special  service  organised  by  the  Bulgarians  to  deal  with  the  epidemic  of  cholera. 

On  going  out  to  my  work  as  usual  at  eight  o'clock  on  Sunday  morning  July  6,  I 
found  all  the  houses  shut  and  the  people  beginning  to  flee.  A  Bulgarian  officer  with  two 
or  three  soldiers  was  in  the  street,  with  rifles  presented,  but  they  did  not  fire.  Towards 
midday  firing  began  and  went  on  all  day,  but  I  can  not  say  who  was  responsible.  Monday 
was  quiet.  I  went  out  on  my  balcony  and  saw  a  priest  announcing  to  the  people  in  the 
street,  "Let  any  one  who  wants  a  gun  go  to  the  bishopric  and  get  it."  I  saw  them  coming 
out  armed,  an  hour  later.  Rifles  were  given  out  to  Turks.  Firing  began  soon  afterwards 
and  went  on  all  day  and  night.  On  Tuesday  morning  some  Greek  andartes  came  to  my 
house  and  arrested  me.  It  was  useless  to  explain  that  I  was  in  the  town  to  fight  the  cholera 
for  the  benefit  of  the  whole  population ;  I  was  taken  to  the  bishop  who,  fortunately,  spoke 
Russian,  and  eventually  released  me.  I  was  again  arrested  on  Thursday  and  taken  by  the 
bishop's  orders  to  the  Greek  hospital.  During  all  this  time  the  Bulgarians  up  and  down 
the  town  were  being  arrested.  Another  Bulgarian  who  was  arrested  at  the  same  time  as 
myself  was  beaten  by  the  soldiers  in  my  presence.  On  Thursday,  while  I  was  at  the 
bishop's  palace,  about  twenty-five  Bulgarian  prisoners  were  brought  in  before  a  commis- 
sion composed  of  priests  and  civilians.  As  far  as  I  could  understand  the  proceedings  they 
were  condemned  to  death  [the  doctor  knows  little  or  no  Greek,  but  thought  he  could 
guess  the  meaning  of  what  went  on].  I  was  removed  with  the  bishop's  consent  to  the 
Bulgarian  hospital,  where  there  was  another  Russian  doctor,  Laznev,  and  an  assistant  named 
Comarov.  On  Friday  morning  we  saw  the  whole  population  fleeing  in  the  direction  of 
Nigrita.  About  eleven  o'clock  shots  were  fired  from  the  hill  behind  our  hospital,  four- 
teen or  fifteen  in  all.  The  firing  went  on.  for  an  hour.  Toward  midday  everything 
was  quiet.  I  then  saw  that  the  town  was  burning.  In  the  afternoon  many  Greek  soldiers 
entered  the  hospital  and  threatened  to  kill  me.  They  stole  everything  in  the  hospital, 
including  Dr.  Laznev's  watch.  [NOTE. — Dr.  Klugmann  went  on  to  give  many  details  of 
the  difficulties  which  he  and  his  colleagues  in  the  Bulgarian  hospital  met  with  from  the  Greek 
authorities.]  I  wish  in  conclusion  to  affirm  my  strong  conviction  that  the  Bulgarians  can- 
not have  burnt  Serres.  I  am  unable  to  say  how  it  was  set  on  fire. 

No.  23.    EVIDENCE  OF  COMMANDANT  IVAN  KIRPIKOV. 

On  Thursday,  July  10,  while  at  Zurnovo,  I  received  orders  to  march  on  Serres  with 
my  column,  to  look  after  the  munitions  which  had  been  left  in  the  town,  to  resume  the 
administration,  and  to  restore  order.  I  understood  this  to  mean  that  I  was  to  stay  in  the 
town,  if  possible,  unless  driven  out  by  superior  force.  I  had  a  battalion  and  a  half  of 
infantry,  one  squadron  of  cavalry,  and  one  battery  of  artillery.  We  marched  throughout 
the  night,  and  by  six  o'clock  on  Friday  morning  were  within  five  or  six  kilometers  of 
Serres.  I  met  on  the  way  two  companies  of  the  dismounted  cavalry,  who  had  been  driven 
back  from  the  town  the  day  before  by  the  insurgent  population.  I  ascertained  that  the 
Greeks  held  three  positions  on  the  hills  surrounding  the  town,  and  estimated  from  their  fire 
that  they  must  number  at  least  1,000  rifles.  I  used  my  artillery  against  each  of  their  posi- 
tions in  succession,  and  our  infantry  was  able  eventually  to  capture  all  three  positions. 
From  the  last  hill  above  the  town  1  saw  the  population  fleeing  from  the  town  in  all  direc- 
tions over  the  plain.  The  enemy's  fire  meanwhile  continued  from  several  houses,  from  an 


APPENDICES  295 

old  tower,  and  from  a  little  hill  which  was  practically  in  the  town.  I  sent  a  detachment 
to  march  down  the  principal  street  with  orders  to  shout  as  they  went  that  the  people 
should  keep  calm  and  fear  nothing.  My  men  were  fired  upon  from  every  house  as  they 
marched,  and  balls  fell  even  where  I  was  standing  with  the  artillery.  I  then  directed  one 
of  my  guns  against  two  big  houses,  from  which  the  fire  chiefly  came.  This  had  the  effect 
of  checking  it.  I  then  sent  three  patrols  of  ten  men  each  to  report  if  our  depots  were 
intact.  They  were  fired  upon. 

I  now  noticed  groups  of  people  in  three  large  masses  in  the  plain,  near  the  railway 
line.  I  could  see  with  my  glasses  that  they  were  all  armed  and  were  wearing  the  Greek 
peasant  costume  peculiar  to  certain  villages  which  we  regarded  as  the  center  of  the  Greek 
propaganda.  I  sent  a  squadron  to  the  railway  station,  but  it  was  stopped  by  hot  fire  from 
the  station.  I  now  realized  that  a  counter  attack  was  being  prepared  and  decided  to  march 
through  the  town  and  give  battle  to  the  groups  of  men  near  the  station.  Meanwhile  a  big 
building  exploded,  presumably  a  magazine.  I  sent  my  patrol  to  see  what  it  was,  but 
they  were  again  repulsed  from  the  same  big  building.  I  ordered  my  patrol  to  localize  the 
conflagration  which  had  now  begun  in  various  places.  The  groups  of  peasants  had  now 
begun  to  advance  on  the  town.  We  never  reached  the  house  that  was  blown  up  and  my 
infantry  were  never  able  to  penetrate  far  into  the  town  because  of  the  continual  fire  from 
the  houses.  As  they  marched,  Moslems  and  Bulgarians  began  to  join  our  men  and  to 
embrace  them. 

I  now  realized  that  the  force  opposed  to  me  was  much  superior  to  my  own,  and  my 
object  now  was  to  clear  the  plain  and  isolate  the  town.  I  ordered  my  guns  to  fire  on  the 
groups  in  the  plain.  The  fire  was  now  spreading  all  over  the  town.  With  my  binoculars 
I  could  see  large  columns  of  the  Greek  regular  army  approaching  from  Orlov.  I  con- 
tinued to  use  my  guns  in  order  to  keep  the  groups  dispersed.  I  then  heard  of  another 
column  of  the  regular  army  which  was  approaching  from  another  direction.  Realizing  that 
I  should  be  unable  to  face  these,  I  sent  patrols  to  our  depots,  which  were  in  front  of  the 
governor's  palace,  with  orders  to  blow  them  up  if  they  found  them  intact.  I  then  arranged 
to  cover  my  retreat.  Shells  had  begun  to  fall  in  the  town  from  the  Greek  guns,  and  some 
of  these  fell  on  the  hospital.  The  Greek  vanguard  with  the  townsmen  attacked  our  rear 
guard.  They  shelled  us  steadily  as  we  retreated,  and  some  of  their  shells  fell  among 
refugees  from  the  town  who  had  fled  to  us. 

In  reply  to  a  question  whether  he  knew  anything  regarding  the  Austrian  vice  consul, 
the  commander  replied,  that  his  patrols  reported  to  him  as  follows : 

We  met  a  person  who  said  he  was  the  Austrian  vice  consul ;  we  took  him  and  his 
family  with  us  for  his  own  protection,  to  ensure  that  neither  the  population  nor  the 
troops  should  molest  him.  We  asked  him  if  he  preferred  to  come  with  us,  or  to  stay 
in  the  town?  He  said  he  preferred  to  come  with  us.  Later,  when  he  saw  that  the 
Greek  army  was  arriving  he  changed  his  mind  and  wished  to  go  back  to  the  town. 
This  we  allowed  him  to  do. 

Before  leaving  the  town  [continued  the  Commander]  some  Bulgarian  civilians  came  to 
me  and  told  me  that  about  250  Bulgarians  had  been  imprisoned  and  massacred  in  the  school 
house.  The  refugees  who  fled  with  us,  told  me  that  the  explosion  which  we  had  heard,  came 
from  a  Greek  magazine  of  cartridges,  which  the  Greeks  themselves  set  on  fire.  The  wind 
was  blowing  violently  from  east  to  west,  and  this  house,  which  was  in  the  east  of  the  town, 
seems  to  have  started  the  conflagration.  I  can  not  believe  that  our  shells  caused  the  fire. 
We  have  often  tested  this;  they  do  not  have  the  effect  of  setting  houses  on  fire. 

No.  24.  EVIDENCE  OF  DOCTOR  YANKOV,  Advocate  and  Counselor  to  the  Governor  of 
Serres. 

I  left  Serres  on  July  5,  and  heard  later  that  a  detachment  was  returning.     I  accompa- 


296  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

nied  it  on  Friday  morning,  July  11.  Our  detachment  fired  two  cannon  shots  against  the 
enemy,  who  was  outside  the  town  towards  the  north.  On  entering  the  town  it  pursued 
the  Greeks,  who  were  not  regulars  but  andartes.  Towards  half  past  eleven  I  saw  flames 
in  the  town.  I  notified  the  commandant  that  we  were  causing  loss  to  the  state.  He  replied 
that  our  shells  could  not  possibly  be  the  cause  of  the  conflagration.  The  cavalry  then 
entered  the  town  and  I  went  with  it,  accompanied  by  Karagiosov  and  Orfaniev.  On  the 
invitation  of  a  leading  Mohammedan  I  entered  his  house  and  found  there  about  one  hun- 
dred Turks  including  many  notables.  We  spoke  of  the  conflagration,  which  was  increasing, 
and  went  out  with  several  Turks  to  attempt  to  check  it.  In  the  town  I  learnt  that  one  of 
the  two  Bulgarian  depots  of  rifles  was  already  burning.  The  Greeks  had  set  it  on  fire. 
The  houses  in  Serres  are  closely  packed  together,  the  streets  are  very  narrow,  and  the  wind 
was  violent,  so  that  the  fire  spread  rapidly.  I  looked  for  fire  engines  at  the  municipality, 
but  failed  to  find  them.  I  went  to  look  elsewhere  and  then  heard  that  the  Bulgarian  army 
was  already  in  retreat.  I  met  the  vice  consul  of  Austria,  Mr.  Zlatkos,  a  Greek,  and  with 
him  about  a  hundred  Greek  refugees.  He  demanded  my  protection.  I  accompanied  him 
back  to  the  town,  a  distance  of  perhaps  cne  hundred  metres.  Karagiosov  disappeared  and 
we  have  had  no  further  news  of  him. 
i 

No.  25.    EVIDENCE  OF  LAZAR  TOMOV,  a  Bulgarian  Teacher  at  Uskub. 

Mr.  Tomov  was  driven  out  of  Uskub,  and  traveled  to  Serres  during  the  early  days 
of  the  second  war.  He  passed  through  Uoiran,  saw  that  all  the  Bulgarian  villages  were 
burned,  and  near  the  village  of  Gavaliantsi  saw  the  corpse  of  a  little  cripple  girl,  wounded 
and  mutilated.  She  was  about  fourteen  years  of  age.  On  July  11,  he  entered  Serres  with 
the  Bulgarian  army,  but  did  not  actually  penetrate  into  the  town.  He  saw  heaps  of  corpses 
in  the  girls'  school,  and  met  four  of  the  survivors  of  the  massacre.  One  of  them  was  the 
man  Lazarov.  The  Bulgarian  troops  were  moved  to  intense  indignation,  but  there  was  no 
outbreak.  He  saw  both  Turks  and  Bulgarian  villagers  setting  houses  on  fire.  Turks  were 
carrying  sacks  through  the  streets,  from  which  he  inferred  that  they  were  looting. 

No.  26.  EVIDENCE  OF  COMMANDANT  MOUSTAKOV,  Secretary  to  General  Voulkov,  Gov- 
ernor of  Serres  and  Macedonia. 

Referring  to  the  documents  published  in  the  Greek  pamphlet  Atrocites  Bulgares,  p.  54, 
in  which  he  is  represented  as  proposing  the  arrest  of  a  number  of  Greek  notables,  the  com- 
mandant explained,  that  neither  of  the  orders  therein  attributed  to  him  is  genuine.  There 
was  no  reason  why  he,  working  in  the  same  office  as  General  Voulkov,  should  have  addressed 
a  written  communication  to  him.  The  commandant  produced  the  official  register  in  which 
his  orders  were  copied. 

(1)  The  first  order  attributed  to  him  bears  an  authentic  number  (No.  8265).  An  order 
with  this  number  does  exist  and  is  entered  in  the  register;  but  its  contents  are  quite  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  the  document  published  in  the  pamphlet.  (2)  No  order  bearing  the 
number  8391  exists. 

[We  examined  the  register,  which  fully  bore  out  the  commandant's  statement.  The  num- 
bers in  the  register  were  not  consecutive,  and  no  entry  had  been  made  corresponding  to 
the  number  in  the  pamphlet]. 

Further,  in  reply  to  the  statement  made  on  p.  30  of  this  pamphlet  that  disguises  and 
other  compromising  articles  had  been  found  by  the  Greeks  in  the  governor's  house,  the 
Commandant  stated  (1)  that  no  such  articles  had  ever  been  in  his  possession  and  (2)  that 
in  any  event  they  can  not  have  been  found,  since  the  house,  which  belonged  to  Nechid-bey, 
had  been  burned  before  the  entry  of  the  Greeks. 

In  explanation  of  the  circumstances  which  attended  the  evacuation  of  Serres,  the  Com- 


.APPENDICES  297 

mandant  staled  that  on  Saturday,  July  5,  there  was  in  the  early  morning  a  panic  in  the  town, 
due  to  a  rumor  that  the  Greek  army  was  approaching.  The  town  was  almost  entirely  de- 
serted. The  Bulgarian  troops  went  out  to  reconnoitre;  he  himself  went  about  calming  the 
people.  By  his  orders  a  squadron  of  dismounted  cavalry  marched  through  the  town  sing- 
ing. It  was  fired  on  from  the  houses,  and  one  soldier  was  killed  and  another  wounded. 
This  occurred  about  5.30  p.m.  Two  men  were  arrested  and  probably  killed.  At  9  p.m.  he 
left  the  town  with  General  Voulkov.  A  detachment  of  about  200  men  of  the  territorial 
army  was  left  behind  under  Commandant  Toplov;  but  in  view  of  the  danger  of  surprise 
attacks  it  passed  the  night  outside  the  town  and  entered  it  again  the  next  day,  again  retiring 
at  nightfall.  The  Commandant  returned  on  July  8,  towards  midday  on  a  locomo- 
tive, with  ten  soldiers.  He  found  Serres  station  surrounded  by  Greek  andartes  and  skir- 
mished with  them  till  evening.  He  had  asked  for  cannon,  which  arrived  late;  he  remained 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Serres  on  the  hills  on  July  9,  but  neither  used  his  cannon  nor  en- 
tered the  town.  On  July  11  took  place  the  attack  in  force  under  Commandant  Kirpikov. 
He  himself  had  intended,  if  he  had  been  able  to  enter  the  town,  to  burn  the  Bulgarian 
stores  and  depots  of  munitions  which  had  been  left  behind.  The  larger  force  had  no  doubt 
the  same  orders. 

With  reference  to  the  statement  that  prisoners  were  killed  by  the  Bulgarians  on  leaving 
the  town,  the  Commandant  explained  that  headquarters  were  aware  of  a  revolutionary 
movement  among  the  Greeks  of  Serres;  the  Greeks  had  large  quantities  of  arms.  He  had 
inquired  of  the  commandant  de  place  what  measures  had  been  taken  to  prevent  an  outbreak. 
The  reply  was  that  "this  in  no  way  concerned  him."  On  July  1  there  were  five  Greek  nota- 
bles under  arrest  at  the  prefecture.  He  failed  to  obtain  any  explanation  as  to  what  would 
be  done  to  them.  The  idea  was  that  by  arresting  these  notables  a  revolution  might  be  pre- 
vented. This  was  an  absurdity,  but  he  believes  these  men  were  in  the  end  liberated. 

On  July  3  Mr.  Arrington  asked  him  to  procure  the  release  of  his  imprisoned  porter 
(cavass).  He  explained  that  this  was  a  matter  which  concerned  the  Commandant  and 
not  the  Governor.  He  ascertained  that  two  or  three  cavass  belonging  to  the  tobacco  ware- 
houses had  been  arrested  because  the  rumor  was  in  circulation  that  the  famous  Greek  insur- 
gent chief,  Captain  Doukas,  was  in  the  town  disguised  as  the  cavass  of  a  tobacco  ware- 
house. He  gave  orders  before  leaving  Serres,  that  prisoners  of  all  races  including  some 
thirty  or  forty  Bulgarian  comitadjis  accused  of  crimes  committed  during  the  war  should 
be  released.  The  prisoners  numbered  about  105  men.  The  Greeks  and  Turks  among  them 
were  persons  of  no  importance.  No  soldiers  were  left  at  the  prison,  and  its  governor  had 
fled.  It  is  conceivable  that  the  Bulgarian  prisoners  may  have  killed  the  Greek  prisoners. 

C.    EVENTS  AT  DEMIR-HISSAK 

No.  27.  REPORT  OF  THE  GENERAL  COMMANDING  THE  SIXTH  DIVISION  OF  THE  GREEK 
ARMY,  dated  July  12. 

I  have  the  honor  to  inform  your  Majesty  that  an  officer  of  my  staff  sent  to  Demir-His- 
sar,  reports  as  follows: 

The  Bulgarian  captain  of  gendarmerie,  Meligov  (Velikov?)  arrested  the  bishop,  Mgr. 
Constantine,  the  priest  Papastavrou,  the  notable  Sapazacharizanou,  and  over  one  hundred 
other  Greeks,  who  were  imprisoned  in  the  confines  of  the  Bulgarian  school.  On  July 
7  and  8  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  and  gendarmes  massacred  them,  and  requisitioned  Turkish 
peasants  to  bury  them  in  the  precincts  of  the  school,  outside  the  wall  on  the  east  side.  An 
officer  of  my  staff  ordered  the  exhumation  of  the  bodies  in  order  to  verify  the  facts.  He 
found  the  heaped  bodies  of  the  victims  at  a  depth  of  over  two  meters. 

Further,  officers  and  soldiers  violated  several  girls;  they  even  killed  one,  named  Agatha 
Thomas,  the  daughter  of  a  gardener,  because  she  resisted  them. 

The  shops  of  the  town  have  been  sacked  and  destroyed,  with  all  the  furniture  of  the 


298  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

houses  of  our  countrymen,  of  whom  some  were  saved  by  the  Turks  who  sheltered  them 
in  their  houses.    The  town  in  general  presents  a  lamentable  spectacle  of  destruction. 

No,  2?a.  The  report  of  the  commission  of  Greek  deputies  which  visited  Demir-His- 
sar,  contains  the  following  additional  details: 

The  number  of  notables  arrested  was  104;  eighty  were  at  once  killed  by  bayo- 
net thrusts.  Twenty-four  others,  by  feigning  death,  survived,  though  seriously 
wounded.  Among  the  victims  are  two  women  and  two  babies  aged  two  and  three 
years.  *  *  *  The  bishop  and  three  priests  were  killed  by  Captain  Anghel 
Dimitriev  Bostanov  with  his  own  hand.  He  first  gouged  out  their  eyes  and  cut  off 
their  hands.  *  *  *  All  these  atrocities  were  committed  by  the  soldiers  and  non- 
commissioned officers  of  the  Bulgarian  regular  army  belonging  to  the  Twelfth  and 
Twenty-first  regiments.  *  *  *" 

There  follows  an  account  of  the  search  for  arms  at  the  bishop's  palace,  in  which  this 
statement  occurs :  "The  soldiers  knocked  at  the  door,  and  as  the  bishop  resisted,  they  broke 
it  down."  In  describing  the  exhumation  of  the  bodies,  it  is  stated  that  only  eight  were 
actually  exhumed.  The  corpse  of  the  bishop  was  lying  face  downwards.  The  Commission 
have  before  it  an  official  list  of  seventy-one  persons  killed  and  five  wounded,  and  of  others 
who  have  disappeared,  making  a  total  of  104.  It  includes  one  priest  (not  three),  and  is 
comprised  largely  of  working  men  who  can  not  have  been  "notable." 

No.  28.  In  its  issue  of  July  13/26,  the  official  Echo  de  Bulgarie  published  the  follow- 
ing statement: 

As  regards  the  acts  of  repression  at  Demir-Hissar,  it  is  necessary  to  explain  that  the 
Greek  population  of  this  town,  roused  by  agitators,  revolted  on  July  8,  when  the  Bulga- 
rian troops  withdrew.  It  pillaged  the  military  magazines,  the  public  buildings,  and  the 
Bulgarian  houses,  and  massacred  a  number  of  soldiers  who  fell  into  its  hands,  as  well  as 
the  sick  and  wounded  of  an  ambulance  train  which  arrived  that  day  from  Serres.  The 
bodies  of  sixteen  soldiers  were  found  in  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  town;  the 
exact  number  of  those  massacred  in  the  town  itself  has  never  been  exactly  ascertained. 

The  rebels  took  up  positions  all  around  the  town,  whence  on  the  following  day  a  Bul- 
garian detachment  coming  from  Serres  in  ignorance  of  what  was  going  on,  was  obliged 
to  dislodge  them  by  force.  On  its  entry  into  the  town,  it  was  met  with  a  fusillade  from 
other  rebels  concealed  in  the  houses.  Order  was  none  the  less  promptly  re- 
stored. Some  individuals  taken  with  arms  in  their  hands  were  shot.  An  inquiry  was  held 
into  the  events  of  the  previous  day.  The  murderers  and  the  instigators  of  the  movement 
were  arrested,  and  some  of  them  were  executed.  It  was  established  that  the  Greek  prelate 
was  the  chief  leader,  and  that  he  had  set  the  example  to  the  rebels  by  himself  firing  the 
nrst  shots  from  his  window  against  soldiers  who  were  passing  his  house.  Further,  a  re- 
volver was  found  in  his  pocket,  with  several  of  its  cartridges  used. 

To  explain  the  severities  employed  in  restoring  order  at  Demir-Hissar,  it  must  be 
added  that  on  the  same  day,  July  9,  Greek  troops  burned  the  Bulgarian  villages  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Demir-Hissar,  notably  Gorni-Poroi,  Dolni-Porio,  Starochevo  and  Ke- 
chislik. 

280.  The  following  supplementary  narrative  from  Bulgarian  official  sources  has  been 
communicated  to  us : 

On  July  5,  as  our  troops  were  withdrawing  towards  the  defile  of  Rupel,  a  panic  oc- 
curred in  Demir-Hissar,  and  some  shots  were  fired  in  the  Greek  quarter.  There  were, 
however,  no  casualties,  and  order  was  speedily  restored  by  the  civil  administration,  which 
remained  in  the  town  (see  No.  46).  From  July  5  to  July  9  the  town  was  relatively  calm. 


APPENDICES  299 

Troops  retreating  on  Djumaia  were  continually  passing  through  it,  and  the  bakeries  were 
working  to  supply  our  troops  at  Rupel.  During  these  days  Major  Stephanov  of  the  gen- 
eral staff  of  the  second  army  passed  twice  through  the  town;  he  states  that  no  one  in 
the  town  complained  of  ill  treatment  by  our  troops  or  officials.  Meanwhile,  the  Greek 
army  advancing  along  the  Salonica-Serres  road  toward  the  bridge  over  the  Struma,  at 
Oriiak,  was  driving  the  fugitive  population  before  it  (see  Nos.  33  and  35).  On  July  7, 
the  Greek  artillery  on  the  right  bank  near  the  burned  bridge  of  Oriiak,  fired  on  the  fugi- 
tives and  on  the  villages  in  the  plain  of  the  Struma  (see  Greek  soldiers'  letters,  No.  51), 
and  this  increased  the  stream  of  fugitives,  some  of  whom  passed  through  the  town  itself. 
The  panic  in  Demir-Hissar  now  became  irresistible,  and  the  administration  abandoned  it. 
The  Greek  population  thus  became  the  master  of  the  town,  and  rushed  through  the 
streets  with  the  Greek  flag,  firing  on  our  wounded  soldiers,  our  baggage  and  ambulance 
trains,  and  on  the  fugitive  population.  A  body  of  from  120  to  150  andartes  under  the 
command  of  a  Greek  officer  arrived  in  the  town,  from  the  direction  of  the  plain.  At  this 
moment  the  Greek  bishop  went  into  the  streets  at  the  head  of  about  twenty  armed  Greeks, 
and  gave  the  order  to  fall  upon  all  Bulgarians.  Fighting  followed  in  the  town.  Two  Bul- 
garian gendarmes  who  were  guarding  our  military  stores  were  killed;  all  the  bakers  were 
slaughtered  at  their  ovens;  many  of  our  wounded  were  killed,  and  a  large  number  of  the 
peasant  fugitives,  including  women  and  children.  The  street  fighting,  the  massacres  and 
general  disorder  continued  all  day,  and  many  were  killed  on  both  sides.  The  Greek  bishop 
was  probably  killed  during  this  fighting.  The  Greek  army  entered  Demir-Hissar  in  the 
evening  of  this  day.  What  was  left  of  the  Bulgarian  population  in  the  town  fled  to  the 
mountains,  pursued  by  the  Greek  troops  and  armed  civilians,  who  massacred  it  whenever 
they  overtook  it. 

There  was  no  Bulgarian  officer  at  Demir-Hissar  after  the  evening  of  July  10,  when 
the  administration  left  the  town. 

The  Ministry  of  War  states  that  Lieutenant  Velikov  was  not  there.  No  such  name 
as  Captain  Anghel  Dimitriev  Bostanov  is  to  be  found  in  the  registers  of  the  active  or  re- 
serve army.  It  is  not  for  the  first  time  that  this  has  happened.  More  than  once  in  the 
telegrams  of  General  Dousmanis,  Generals  Kovatchev  and  Voulkov  are  mentioned  as 
being  in  the  neighborhood  of  Demir-Hissar  or  Serres,  when  in  fact  they  were  either  op- 
posing the  Serbs  or  were  at  Dubnitsa. 

More  than  250  wounded  Bulgarian  soldiers  and  peasants  fleeing  from  Kukush,  Doiran 
and  Lagadina  were  killed  at  Demir-Hissar. 


APPENDIX  C 
Documents  Relating  to  Chapter  II 

THE  BULGARIAN   PEASANT  AND  THE  GREEK  ARMY 

No.  29.    KING  CONSTANTINE'S  TELEGRAM.  July  12,  1913. 

The  general  commanding  the  Sixth  Division  informs  me  that  Bulgarian  soldiers  under 
the  command  of  a  captain  of  gendarmes  gathered  in  the  yard  of  the  school  house  at  Demir- 
Hissar  over  one  hundred  notables  of  the  town,  the  archbishop  and  two  priests,  and  massa- 
cred them  all.  The  headquarters  staff  ordered  the  exhumation  of  the  bodies,  with  the 
result  that  the  crime  has  been  established.  Further,  Bulgarian  soldiers  violated  young 
girls  and  massacred  those  who  resisted  them.  Protest  in  my  name  to  the  representatives 
of  the  powers  and  to  the  whole  civilized  world  against  these  abominations,  and  declare 
that  to  my  great  regret  I  shall  find  myself  obliged  to  proceed  to  reprisals,  in  order  to 
inspire  their  authors  with  a  salutary  fear,  and  to  cause  them  to  reflect  before  committing 
similar  atrocities.  The  Bulgarians  have  surpassed  all  the  horrors  perpetrated  by  their 
barbarous  hordes  in  the  past,  thus  proving  that  they  have  not  the  right  to  be  classed  among 
civilized  peoples. 

(Signed)         CONSTANTINE,  King. 

The  above  telegram  was  sent  to  the  representatives  of  Greece  in  the  European  capitals. 

No.  30.    EVIDENCE  OF  FATHER  JOSEPH  RADANOV,  of  Kukush. 

On  July  2  he  could  distinctly  see  from  Kukush  that  the  surrounding  villages  were  on 
fire,  Salamanli  among  others.  Fields  of  corn  and  stacks  of  reaped  corn  had  been  set  on 
fire  even  behind  the  Greek  positions.  The  Greeks  moreover  had  fired  upon  the  reapers 
who  had  gone  to  work  in  the  early  morning  in  their  fields.  The  refugees  from  the  neigh- 
boring villages  began  to  arrive  upon  the  heights  called  Kara-Bunar  about  a  mile  away, 
and  were  there  bombarded  by  artillery. 

Next  day  (July  3)  the  battle  approached  the  town,  but  the  Bulgarians  retained  their 
position.  About  midday  the  Greeks  began  to  bombard  Kukush,  but  when  I  left  no  house 
had  taken  fire. 

No.  31.    FATHER  JEAN  CHIKITCHEV. 

I  took  refuge  after  midday  on  July  3  with  Father  Michel  and  meant  to  stay  with  him. 
I  saw  the  shells  falling  upon  the  sisters'  orphanage.  I  saw  the  hospital  struck  by  a  shell. 
There  were  at  this  time  no  Bulgarian  troops  in  the  town,  although  they  were  in  their  po- 
sitions in  front  of  it.  The  town  was  unfortified.  The  bombardment  seemed  to  be  sys- 
tematic. It  could  not  be  explained  as  a  mistake  incidental  to  the  finding  of  the  range. 
Quite  forty  shells  fell  not  far  from  the  orphanage  and  three  or  possibly  four  houses  were 
set  on  fire.  At  this  point  I  left  the  town  and  fled  with  the  refugees.  Next  night  it  looked 
as  if  the  whole  plain  were  burning. 

NOTE. — Both  the  above  witnesses  are  priests  of  the  Catholic  Uniate  Church.  (See 
also  63a.) 


...       _  .. 

APPENDICES  301 

.-..if?.  /•:=!.••      .-.?    )  ?e~:     '{?ri 

AT0.  j^.  MR.  C.  [the  name  may  not  be  published]  a.  Catholic  resident  in  the  village :0£) 
Todoraki  near  Kukush,  states  than  on  July  6  the  Greek  commandant  of  Kukush  arrived 
accompanied  by  thirty  infantrymen  and  eighty  armed  Turks.  He  was  bound  and  left  ex- 
posed to  the  full  sun  without  food  or  water  from  7  a.m.  until  3  p.m.  His  house  was  pil- 
laged, and  200  francs  taken  with  all  his  personal  property.  On  being  released  he  learnt 
from  the  villagers  that  they  had  lost  in  all  £T300  during  the  pillage.  Two  men  were 
beaten  and  twelve  were  bound  and  sent  down  to  prison  in  Salonica.  The  women  were 
not  maltreated. 

No.  S3-     PETER  SHAPOV,  of  Zarovo  near  Langaza,  a  shepherd. 

He  was  taking  his  sheep  and  goats  on  the  road  to  Demir-Hissar  when  Greek  cavalry 
overtook  the  refugees  on  the  edge  of  the  town  and  began  to  slash  out  with  their  sabres  to 
left  and  right.  They  took  600  goats  belonging  to  himself  and  his  two  brothers.  One  of 
his  brothers  was  wounded  by  a  cavalryman  and  died  afterwards  at  the  Bulgarian  fron- 
tier. The  Bulgarian  army  was  quite  half  an  hour's  walk  away.  There  were  no  Bulgarian 
troops  near  them. 

No.  34.    MATE,  Wife  of  Petro  of  Bogoroditsa,  near  Langaza. 

I  saw  the  Greek  cavalrymen  when  they  entered  our  village.  I  fled  and  in  my  haste 
was  obliged  to  leave  a  baby  of  eighteen  months  behind  in  the  village  in  order  to  flee  with 
this  one  which  I  have  with  me,  a  child  of  three.  I  saw  our  village  in  flames.  I  want  my 
child. 

No.  35.    ELISAVA,  Wife  of  Georghi  of  Zarovo,  near  Langaza. 

We  all  fled  when  the  shells  began  to  fall  in  our  village  and  got  safely  to  Demir-His- 
sar. Then  I  heard  people  saying  the  Greek  cavalry  are  coming.  There  was  a  panic;  chil- 
dren fell  on  the  ground  and  horsemen  rode  over  them.  I  lost  my  children,  save  one  whom 
I  was  able  to  carry.  My  husband  had  two  others  with  him.  I  do  not  know  what  has  be- 
come of  him,  and  have  not  seen  him  since  that  day. 

No.  36.    MITO  KOLEV,  a  boy  of  fourteen  from  the  village  of  Gavaliantsi,  near  Kukush. 

On  Wednesday,  July  2,  after  the  fighting  at  Kukush,  the  peasants  fled  from  our 
village  except  a  few  old  people.  I  fled  with  the  rest  and  reached  Kilindir.  On  Thursday 
I  went  back  three  hours'  walk  to  our  village  to  collect  our  beasts  and  find  my  mother. 
I  found  her  and  was  going  along  the  road  back  to  Kilindir  with  others.  As  we  were  leav- 
ing our  village  I  saw  a  Greek  cavalryman  in  uniform  on  horseback.  He  fired  his  rifle  at 
me  and  missed.  I  threw  myself  on  the  road,  pretending  to  be  dead.  He  then  shot  my 
mother  in  the  breast  and  I  heard  her  say  as  she  fell  beside  me,  "Mito,  are  you  alive?"  and 
that  was  the  last  word  she  spoke.  Another  boy  came  up  and  ran  away,  when  he  saw  what 
had  happened.  The  soldier  pursued  him,  shot  him,  and  then  killed  him  with  his  sword 
without  dismounting.  Then  I  saw  a  little  cripple  girl  named  Kata  Gosheva,  who  was  in 
front  of  us  hiding  in  a  ravine.  The  soldier  went  after  her,  but  I  do  not  know  whether 
he  killed  her.  He  then  came  back,  passed  us  and  met  other  cavalrymen.  A  certain  miller 
of  the  village  named  Kaliu,  who  could  speak  both  Greek  and  Bulgarian,  then  came  up 
and  lifted  me  up.  The  miller  had  a  Mauser  rifle.  He  hid  in  the  ravine  when  he  saw  that 
the  two  troopers  were  hurrying  back  and  I  hid  in  some  hay.  I  heard  the  horses'  hoofs 
going  towards  the  miller.  They  talked,  and  I  suppose  he  must  have  surrendered.  He  then 
came  back  to  where  I  was  and  the  miller  said,  "Mito,  Mito,  come  out  or  the  cavalry  will 
kill  you."  So  T  came  out.  We  both  then  went  to  the  school  house  where  we  found  other 
Greek  troopers.  I  was  quite  sure  they  were  Greeks  because  I  recognized  the  uniform. 


302  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

They  used  to  come  to  our  village  sometimes  before  the  war  broke  out.  They  questioned 
the  miller  in  Greek  and  wrote  something  and  gave  it  to  him.  The  miller  then  said,  "Let's 
go  to  the  mill.  It  is  about  fifteen  minutes  from  the  village."  We  stayed  there  for  an  hour. 
In  the  meantime,  three  other  Greek  troopers  came  up  from  another  direction.  The  miller 
went  to  meet  them  and  showed  them  his  piece  of  paper.  The  miller  told  me  to  gather 
straw,  and  he  did  the  same.  The  troopers  set  fire  to  it  so  as  to  burn  down  the  mill.  [In 
reply  to  a  question,  Mito  explained  that  the  mill  was  not  the  miller's  personal  property. 
It  belonged  to  the  village  community,  which  employed  him.]  The  miller  took  away  his 
mattress  on  his  horse,  which  was  at  the  mill.  The  troopers  then  left  us  and  went  to 
the  village.  We  followed  and  the  miller  said  to  me,  "We  had  better  ask  them  for  another 
bit  of  paper  so  that  they  will  let  us  go  to  Salonica."  Then  some  cartridges  which  had 
been  left  behind  began  to  explode  in  the  mill.  This  brought  up  other  troopers  at  a 
gallop.  They  fired  on  us.  The  miller  said  something  to  them  in  Greek,  showed  them  the 
paper  and  they  chatted.  [Mito  only  speaks  Bulgarian.]  I  saw  them  looking  at  me.  Then 
one  of  them  drew  his  revolver  and  fired.  The  ball  went  through  my  clothes  without 
wounding  me.  I  fell  down,  pretending  to  be  dead.  He  fired  again  and  this  time  the 
ball  went  in  at  my  back  and  came  out  at  my  breast.  Then,  still  on  horseback,  he  struck 
me  on  the  shoulder  with  his  sabre  and  the  same  blow  wounded  my  finger.  [Mito  lay  down 
and  showed  exactly  how  it  happened.  He  still  had  the  scars  of  all  these  wounds.  The 
position  was  perfectly  possible.]  Blood  was  flowing  from  my  mouth.  I  hid  in  the  corn 
all  the  rest  of  the  day  and  saw  the  village  take  fire  in  three  places.  The  cavalry  then 
gathered  together  and  then  rode  off.  I  was  in  pain,  but  managed  to  walk  away.  I  met 
two  Bulgarian  neighbors  on  my  way  and  one  of  them  took  me  in  his  cart  to  Doiran. 
There  I  met  my  father  and  had  my  wounds  dressed  in  the  military  hospital.  We  fled 
through  the  mountains,  and  I  was  taken  to  the  hospital  in  Sofia. 

No.   37.    VLADIMIR   GEORGHIEV,   of  Dragomirtsi,  near  Kukush. 

I  left  the  village  when  the  war  began  and  afterwards  went  back  to  find  some  of  my 
property.  I  saw  the  Greek  cavalry,  perhaps  a  whole  regiment  of  them.  There  were  ten 
in  our  village  with  officers.  I  managed  to  hide  in  some  reeds  near  the  village.  I  saw  Gava- 
liantsi  burning.  About  2  o'clock  eight  cavalrymen  passed  and  burned  the  mill.  They 
then  went  into  the  village  to  finish  the  burning.  I  also  saw  our  own  village  Dragomirtsi 
burning,  and  heard  two  or  three  shots  fired.  Toward  6  o'clock  I  fled  and  on  my  way 
met  Mito  Kolev,  who  was  wounded  and  could  hardly  walk.  Mito  said  he  could  not  ride,  so 
it  was  no  use  to  offer  him  my  beast.  I  left  him  and  went  on.  (See  also  63d.) 

No.  38.    CHRISTO  ANDONOV,  of  Gavaliantsi. 

He  was  beaten  by  the  Greek  soldiers.  He  saw  the  mother  of  Mito  Kolev  near  the 
'Greek  cavalrymen  and  supposes  she  must  have  been  killed.  He  did  not  see  what  happened 
very  distinctly  as  he  was  at  considerable  distance.  He  saw  the  boy  named  Georghi  Tassev 
killed  with  a  sabre  thrust  by  a  trooper  who  was  one  of  five.  Some  way  off  Kata  Gosheva, 
the  lame  girl,  was  killed  with  a  sword.  This  he  saw  quite  distinctly.  He  was  hidden  in  the 
ravine  at  the  time. 

NOTE. — These  two  witnesses  were  in  a  crowd  of  refugees  at  Samakov.  In  passing 
through  the  market  place  we  inquired  whether  anyone  present  came  from  the  village  of 
Gavaliantsi.  They  stepped  forward  and  told  the  above  stories  when  asked  to  explain  what 
happened  to  them  after  the  battle  of  Kukush.  See  also  the  evidence  of  Lazar  Tomov, 
:No.  25. 

THE  AFFAIR  OF  AKANGELI 

No.  .jp.  MR.  G.,  a  Catholic  inhabitant  of  Kukush,  interviewed  at  Salonica,  made  the 
»iollowing  statement : 


APPENDICES  303 

"After  fleeing  from  Kukush,  I  arrived  at  Akangeli  with  some  thousands  of  refugees 
irom  all  the  surrounding  villages.  It  is  close  to  the  station  of  Doiran.  Between  two  and 
three  p.m.  on  Sunday  afternoon  (July  6)  the  Greek  cavalry  arrived,  possibly  300  of  them, 
with  officers.  The  inhabitants  went  out  to  meet  them  with  white  flags  and  the  priest  at 
their  head.  About  120  people  of  the  village  were  told  off  to  look  after  the  cavalry  horses. 
These  people  disappeared  and  no  trace  could  be  found  of  them  next  day.  That  evening  the 
women,  both  natives  and  refugees,  were  all  violated,  often  repeatedly.  The  soldiers  pil- 
laged and  killed,  but  would  spare  a  man's  life  for  five  piastres  or  so.  Probably  fifty  inhab- 
itants of  Akangeli  were  killed.  I  and  another  man  were  bound  together  by  the  cavalry. 
Six  piastres  and  a  watch  were  taken  from  me  and  my  life  was  spared,  but  my  companion 
was  killed  at  my  side.  Women  and  girls  were  stripped  and  searched  to  find  money.  1 
saw  many  cases  of  violation  myself,  it  was  done  more  or  less  publicly,  sometimes  in  the 
houses  but  sometimes  in  the  fields  and  on  the  roads.  I  saw  the  village  burnt  and  witnessed 
another  case  of  the  murder  of  a  peasant." 

In  reply  to  questions  he  stated  that  he  saw  the  corpses  of  the  fifty  inhabitants  after 
they  had  been  killed.  Some  were  shot  and  some  were  bayoneted.  Again  in  reply  to  a  ques- 
tion he  was  certain  there  was  no  conflict  in  the  neighborhood  and  no  shots  were  fired,  but 
the  villagers  were  told  to  collect  their  rifles  and  surrender  them.  They  did  so  and  one  went 
off  accidentally  in  the  hands  of  an  officer  who  was  breaking  it.  He  was  wounded,  and  the 
soldiers  at  once  killed  a  boy  who  was  standing  near.  Turks  joined  with  Greeks  in  the  pil- 
lage and  so  did  the  infantry,  which  arrived  next  day. 

No.  40.    GEORGHI  CHARISANOV,  of  Selo-Surlevo. 

He  took  refuge  in  Akangeli.  A  squadron  of  Greek  cavalry  arrived  on  Sunday  after- 
noon, gathered  the  refugees  together  and  demanded  arms,  telling  them  not  to  fear.  They 
then  began  to  beat  and  rob.  The  Turks  who  followed  them  assisted  in  the  pillage.  On 
Monday,  Greek  infantry  came  and  joined  in  sacking  the  village.  Anyone  who  resisted  was 
killed.  There  was  a  general  panic  and  everyone  fled  who  could.  There  were  refugees  from 
quite  fifteen  villages  in  the  place.  The  soldiers  violated  women  all  the  time,  even  little 
children.  The  soldiers  went  round  from  house  to  house  on  Sunday  night  and  ordered  the 
people  to  open  the  doors.  They  had  a  native  of  the  village  with  them  in  order  to  give 
confidence  to  the  people.  Women  were  searched  for  money.  About  one  hundred  men 
were  taken  to  look  after  the  horses  of  the  cavalry  and  these  disappeared.  On  Monday 
the  village  was  burned.  We  had  given  ourselves  up  quite  voluntarily  to  the  cavalry  and 
welcomed  them,  and  had  surrendered  about  one  hundred  rifles.  There  was  no  excuse  for 
what  the  soldiers  did. 

No.  41.    MITO  ILIEV,  a  butcher  of  Akangeli. 

I  was  there  when  the  Greek  army  arrived  on  Sunday  afternoon  towards  four  o'clock. 
Reckoning  from  St.  Peter's  day  it  must  have  been  July  6.  The  village  was  filled  with  refu- 
gees from  Kukush  district,  perhaps  4,000  altogether.  The  people  went  out  to  meet  the  cav- 
alry by  each  of  three  roads.  There  were  about  400  of  them.  We  made  a  white  flag  and 
showed  the  Greek  colors.  Everything  went  quietly  at  first.  The  commandant  asked  for 
the  mayor,  and  inquired  in  Turkish  whether  he  would  surrender  and  give  up  the  arms  of 
the  village.  We  fetched  our  rifles  (generally  old  Martinis)  and  piled  them  on  a  cart. 
The  soldiers  called  for  bread  and  cheese  which  were  brought  out.  They  then  said,  "Who 
is  the  butcher  here,  that  he  may  kill  sheep  for  us."  I  was  chosen  and  troopers  went  with 
me  to  fetch  and  kill  thirty  sheep.  Meanwhile  the  soldiers  began  to  demand  money  from 
everybody.  I  saw  a  young  man,  a  refugee  from  another  village,  whose  name  I  do  not 
know,  killed  with  a  sword  because  he  had  nothing.  I  was  told  that  a  boy  of  fifteen  was 
killed  about  this  time,  but  did  not  see  it.  The  people  were  now  gathered  together  in  the 


304 

square  of  the  village  and  told  to  sit  down.  This  I  witnessed.  The  Greek  commandant  them 
came  and  asked,  "Where  do  all  these  people  come  from?"  Then  he  separated  the  men  of 
Akangeli  from  the  rest  to  the  number  of  about  sixty  and  sent  them  to  a  wood  called  Chaluk. 
Nothing  more  was  ever  heard  of  them.  1  went  on  cooking  the  sheep.  Then  the  soldiers- 
began  to  violate  all  the  women.  I  heard  cries  going  on  all  night,  especially  about  11  o'clock. 
The  soldiers  were  not  drunk,  and  they  had  officers  with  them.  I  stayed  all  night  at  my 
oven,  and  saw  the  two  daughters-in-law  of  Stovan  Popovali  violated  in  front  of  me,  a  few 
paces  away  by  three  soldiers.  Next  morning,  when  we  talked  together  in  the  village,  I  heard! 
of  many  other  violations.  On  Monday  the  Greek  infantry  arrived,  seized  me  and  told  me 
to  lead  them  to  Dourbali.  I  led  them  there,  and  as  I  went  off  Akangeli  began  to  blaze. 
I  heard  cries  and  rifle  shots  on  all  hands.  When  I  got  to  Dourbali  I  fled  to  Atli,  half  art 
hour  away,  and  hid  in  the  house  of  my  partner  Saduk,  a  Turk.  I  sent  Saduk  to  see  what 
had  become  of  my  wife  and  family.  He  came  back  and  said  that  everyone  was  being  killed 
in  the  village,  that  he  had  seen  many  corpses,  that  my  house  was  not  burnt,  but  that  there 
were  three  dead  bodies  in  front  of  it.  Saduk  advised  me  to  flee,  and  I  did  so.  The  Turks 
in  our  own  village  (Akangeli)  behaved  well,  but  strangers  from  other  Turkish  villages 
came  and  joined  in  the  pillage. 

In  reply  to  questions  the  witness  stated  that  an  officer  was  accidentally  wounded  in  the 
arm  while  examining  one  of  the  revolvers  which  had  been  given  up.  This  he  saw  per- 
sonally, but  denied  that  it  explains  the  killing  of  the  young  man  who  was  the  first  to  be 
killed  with  a  sword.  That  happened  some  distance  away. 

No.  42.     STOYAN  STOYEV,  aged  18,  of  Akangeli.    . 

This  witness,  at  Dubnitsa,  in  reply  to  a  question  addressed  to  the  group  of  refugees,, 
whether  any  of  those  present  came  from  this  village  or  had  passed  through  it  in  their 
flight,  related  in  outline  almost  exactly  the  same  story  as  the  last  witness,  including, 
the  details  about  the  conversation  between  Ihc  commandant  and  the  mayor.  The  pillage,  he 
said,  began  while  the  arms  were  being  gathered.  A  rifle  went  off  accidentally,  and  an  of- 
ficer was  wounded,  while  the  Greek  soldier  was  emptying  it.  This  he  saw  from  a  distance 
of  about  forty  meters.  Then  the  cavalry  drew  their  swords  and  some  people  were 
killed,  certainly  two  youths.  At  this  point  he  hid  and  saw  little  more  He  heard  from  a 
friend  of  his,  a  youth  who  came  running  out  of  the  house  of  Dine  Popov,  that  his  wife 
was  being  violated.  He  then  fled  to  a  Turkish  village.  (See  also  63b.) 

No.  43.    ANASTASIA  PAVLOVA,  a  widow  of  Ghevghcli. 

Shortly  before  the  outbreak  of  the  second  war  I  was  staying  with  my  daughter,  a  Bul- 
garian school  teacher  in  the  village  of  Boinitsa.  A  Greek  lady  came  from  Salonica,  and 
distributed  money  and  uniforms  to  the  Turks  of  the  place  some  six  or  eight  days  before 
the  outbreak  of  the  second  war.  She  also  called  the  Bulgarians  of  the  village  together, 
ind  told  them  that  they  must  not  imagine  that  this  village  would  belong  to  Bulgaria.  She 
summoned  the  Bulgarian  priest,  and  asked  him  if  he  would  become  a  Greek.  He  replied, 
"We  are  all  Bulgarians  and  Bulgarians  we  will  remain."  There  were  some  Greek  officers 
with  this  lady  who  caught  the  priest  by  the  beard.  Then  the  men  who  were  standing  by, 
to  the  number  of  about  fifty,  had  their  hands  bound  behind  their  backs,  and  were  beaten 
by  the  soldiers.  They  were  told  that  they  must  sign  a  written  statement  that  they  would 
become  Greeks.  When  they  refused  to  do  this  they  were  all  taken  to  Salonica.  When  the 
men  were  gone,  the  soldiers  began  to  violate  the  women  of  the  place,  three  soldiers  usually 
to  one  girl.  [She  named  several  cases  which  she  witnessed.]  The  soldiers  came  in  due 
course  to  my  house  and  asked  where  my  daughter  was.  '  I  said  she  was  ill  and  had  gene 
to  Ghevgheli.  They  insisted  that  I  should  bring  her  to  them.  The  Greek  teacher  of  the 
village,  Christo  Poparov,  who  was  with  the  soldiers,  was  the  most  offensive  of  them  all. 


APPENDICES  305 

They  threatened  to  kill  me  if  ]  would  not  produce  her.  The  soldiers  then  came  into  the- 
room  and  beat  me  with  the  butts  of  their  rifles  and  I  fell.  "Now,"  they  said,  "you  belong 
to  the  Greeks,  your  house  and  everything  in  it,"  and  they  sacked  the  house.  Then  sixteen, 
soldiers  came  and  again  called  for  my  daughter,  and  since  they  could  not  find  her  they 
used  me  instead.  I  was  imprisoned  in  my  own  house  and  never  left  alone.  Four  days 
before  the  war  I  was  allowed  to  go  to  Ghevgheli  by  rail  with  two  soldiers  to  fetch  my  daugh- 
ter. She  was  really  in  the  village  of  Djavato.  At  Ghevgheli,  the  soldiers  gave  me  permis- 
sion to  go  alone  to  the  village  to  fetch  her.  Outside  the  village  I  met  five  Greek  soldiers,, 
who  greeted  me  civilly  and  asked  for  the  news.  Suddenly  they  fired  a  rifle  and  called  out, 
"Stop,  old  woman."  They  then  fired  six  shots  to  frighten  me.  I  hurried  on  and  got  into 
the  village  just  before  the  soldiers.  They  bound  my  hands,  began  to  beat  me,  undressed1 
me,  and  flung  me  down  on  the  ground.  Some  Servian  soldiers  were  in  the  village  and  in- 
terfered with  the  Greeks  and  saved  my  life.  My  daughter  was  hidden  in  the  village  and 
she  saw  what  was  happening  to  me  and  came  running  out  to  give  herself  up,  in  order  to 
save  her  mother.  She  made  a  speech  to  the  soldiers  and  said,  "Brothers,  when  we  have 
worked  so  long  together  as  allies,  why  do  you  kill  my  mother  ?"  The  soldiers  only  answered1,, 
that  they  would  kill  her  too.  I  then  showed  them  the  passport  which  had  been  given 
to  me  at  Boinitsa.  I  can  not  read  Greek  and  did  not  know  what  was  on  it.  It  seems  that 
what  was  written  there  was  "This  is  a  mother  who  is  to  go  and  find  her  daughter  and  bring 
her  back  to  us.'"  The  Greek  soldiers  then  saw  that  it  was  my  daughter,  and  not  I,  who  was 
wanted  and  my  daughter  cried,  "New  I  am  lost."  The  soldiers  offered  me  the  choice  of 
staying  in  the  village  or  going  with  my  daughter  to  Ghevgheli.  I  begged  that  they  would 
leave  us  alone  together  where  we  were  until  the  morning,  and  to  this  they  agreed.  In  the 
night  I  fled  with  my  daughter,  who  disguised  herself  in  boy's  clothes,  to  a  place  two  hours 
away  which  was  occupied  by  Bulgarian  soldiers.  I  then  went  myself  to  Ghevgheli  and  im- 
mediately afterwards,  the  se-jond  war  broke  out.  The  Bulgarians  took  the  town  and  then- 
retired  from  it,  and  the  Greeks  entered  it.  The  moment  .they  came  in  they  began  killing 
people  indiscriminately  in  the  street.  One  man  named  Anton  Bakharji  was  killed  before 
my  eyes.  I  also  saw  a  Greek  woman  named  Helena  kill  a  rich  Bulgarian  named  Hadji 
Tano,  with  her  revolver.  Another,  whose  name  I  do  not  know,  was  wounded  by  a  soldier. 
A  panic  followed  in  the  town  and  a  general  flight.  Outside  the  town  I  met  a  number  of 
Greek  soldiers  who  had  with  them  sixteen  Bulgarian  girls  as  their  prisoners.  All  of  then* 
were  crying,  several  of  them  were  undressed,  and  some  were  covered  with  blood.  The 
soldiers  were  so  much  occupied  with  these  girls  that  they  did  not  interfere  with  us,  and  al- 
lowed us  to  flee  past  them.  As  we  crossed  the  bridge  over  the  Vardar,  we  saw  little  chil- 
dren who  had  been  abandoned  and  one  girl  lying  as  if  dead  on  the  ground.  The  cavalry 
were  coming  up  behind  us.  There  was  no  time  to  help.  A  long  way  off  a  battle  was  going 
on  and  we  could  hear  the  cannon,  but  nobody  fired  upon  us.  For  eight  days  we  fled  to 
Bulgaria  and  many  died  on  the  way.  The  Bulgarian  soldiers  gave  us  bread.  I  found  my 
daughter  at  Samakov.  My  one  consolation  is  that  I  saved  her  honor. 

-Yo.  44.     ATHANAS  IVANOV,  of  Kirtchevo,  near  Demir-Hissar. 

Our  village  is  purely  Bulgarian  and  consists  of  190  houses.  I  am  a  shepherd  and  look 
after  the  sheep  of  the  village.  When  the  Greek  army  approached,  most  of  the  other  vil- 
lagers fled,  but  I  was  late  in  going  and  remained  behind  to  see  that  my  family  had  all  got 
safely  away.  On  July  16,  while  my  wife  was  gathering  her  belongings,  the  Greek  soldiers 
arrived.  Some  of  them  told  a  young  woman,  a  relative  of  ours,  who  was  in  front  of  the 
house,  to  go  and  find  bread  for  them.  Her  husband  had  already  been  seized.  I  went  to- 
look  for  her.  I  found  a  sentinel  with  a  fixed  bayonet  in  front  of  her  house.  I  rushed  past 
him,  and  found  that  she  had  just  been  violated  by  a  soldier,  while  another  stood  over  her 
with  his  bayonet,  and  then  the  second  soldier  also  violated  her.  She  had  had  a  baby  only 


306  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

three  days  before.  I  then  met  Peniu  Penev,  who  said  to  me,  "You  can  speak  Greek.  All 
•our  wives  are  being  violated;  come  and  talk  to  the  soldiers."  I  entered  the  courtyard  of 
a  house  and  saw  three  women  on  the  ground  who  were  being  violated.  One  was  wounded 
in  the  leg  and  another  in  the  arm.  [We  took  the  names,  but  see  no  object  in  publishing 
them.]  This  was  about  three  p.m.  Many  other  women  were  there,  crying.  I  then  went  out 
in  fear,  and  when  I  had  gone  some  distance,  saw  that  the  village  was  burning.  I  met  a 
woman  trying  to  put  out  the  fire  with  water.  The  soldiers  came  up  and  violated  her.  I  saw 
six  soldiers  trying  to  violate  a  young  girl.  Another  soldier  protested,  but  they  threatened 
him  with  their  bayonets.  A  sergeant  then  told  this  man  to  stop  interfering  and  ordered  him 
to  arrest  me  and  take  me  to  the  officers,  who  were  at  a  place  some  half  an  hour's  distance 
from  the  village.  [In  reply  to  questions,  the  witness  stated  that  two  cavalry  officers  were 
in  the  village,  but  were  not  in  the  courtyard,  where  most  of  the  violations  were  going  on. 
There  were,  however,  non-commissioned  officers  among  the  infantry  in  the  village.]  When 
I  got  to  the  camp  and  was  brought  before  the  officers,  the  officers  said,  "Take  him  away 
and  fling  him  into  the  flames."  On  my  way  back  to  the  village,  I  met  nine  other  villagers 
and  saw  them  all  killed  with  the  bayonet.  Their  names  were  Ivan  Michailov,  Angel  Dou- 
rov,  Pavlo  Zivantikov,  Ilio  Piliouv,  Peniu  Penev,  Peniu  Christev,  Athanas  Belcov,  Thodor 
Kandjilov,  Gafio  Demetrev.  1  escaped  at  the  moment  by  saying  I  was  a  Greek,  when 
the  soldiers  asked,  "What  kind  of  creatures  are  these?"  I  can  speak  a  little  Greek.  At  dusk 
!  managed  to  run  away.  They  fired  but  missed  me.  I  know  nothing  of  what  happened  to 
my  wife,  but  my  children  are  saved.  (See  also  Nos.  59-62.) 

No.  45.    A  WOMAN  FROM  IJILAR,  near  Kukush,  seen  at  Salonica.  Name  suppressed. 

Everything  in  our  village  was  plundered  and  burnt  including  the  school  and  the  church. 
All  this  was  done  by  Greek  soldiers  of  the  regular  army.  The  inhabitants  mostly  disap- 
peared. Soldiers  kept  sending  for  peasants  to  supply  them  with  sheep.  Four  would  go  and 
never  return,  and  so  on  at  short  intervals  until  hardly  anyone  was  left.  "What  am  I  to  do 
now?  I  have  nothing  left  but  the  clothes  I  wear." 

No.  46.  ANTON  MICHAILOV  AND  DEMETRI  GHEORGHIEV,  of  German,  near  Demir-Hissar. 
(See  also  Nos.  59-62.) 

On  July  5  (Saturday),  we  went  to  the  market  at  Demir-Hissar.  A  panic  presently  took 
place.  Everybody  said  that  the  Greek  cavalry  was  coming.  We  went  up  to  a  height  from 
which  the  plain  was  visible.  We  could  see  no  cavalry,  but  a  lot  of  refugees  coming  from 
the  other  direction,  from  Barakli  Djumaia.  The  Greeks  of  German,  when  the  town  was 
cleared,  began  to  pillage  the  Bulgarian  shops.  They  armed  themselves  and  distributed  arms 
to  the  Turks.  We  found  the  corpses  of  two  Bulgarian  soldiers  in  the  garden  of  Doctor 
Christoteles.  The  refugees  whom  we  met  from  the  country  all  said  that  the  Greeks  were 
everywhere  killing  and  burning;  so  we  returned  to  our  village  which  was  still  intact,  gath- 
ered our  things  together  and  fled. 

Some  of  the  villagers,  however,  remained  in  German.  Some  days  after  we  had  left, 
Greeks  and  Turks  arrived  together  and  began  to  pillage,  burn  and  kill.  We  believe  that 
180  men,  women  and  children  were  killed.  German  had  100  houses,  and  about  half  the 
population  remained.  We  heard  of  the  fate  of  the  others  from  a  young  man  named  Demi- 
tri  Gheorghiev  [not  to  be  confused  with  our  witness  of  the  same  name],  who  told  us  that 
the  people  were  gathered  together  by  the  Greeks  and  Turks,  the  men  in  the  church  and  the 
women  in  the  house  of  Papa  Georghi.  Some  of  the  men  tried  to  escape  from  the  church,  but 
were  all  shot  at  once.  This  was  a  signal  for  the  massacre.  The  men  were  first  searched 
and  robbed,  and  then  killed.  Young  Demetri  jumped  from  the  window  of  the  church  and 
had  the  good  sense  to  lie  down  as  if  he  were  dead  when  he  was  shot  at.  He  told  us  that 
some  insurgents  (andartes)  had  arrived  from  Athens  and  organized  everything.  There  is 
only  one  other  survivor  of  the  massacre,  namely,  Papa  Georghi. 


APPENDICES  307 

NOTE.  We  made  a  uniform  rule  of  refusing  to  allow  witnesses  to  give  us  any  informa- 
tion at  second  hand,  but  in  this  instance  (and  also  in  No.  50)  since  the  alleged  massacre 
had  been  so  complete  the  circumstances  seemed  exceptional. 

No.  47.  ANTON  SOTIROV,  a  Priest  from  the  village  of  Kalcndra  near  Serres,  stated  that 
Greek  regulars  and  Turks  came  and  burnt  the  Bulgarian  houses  at  their  village  and  killed1 
an  old  man,  the  only  one  of  the  inhabitants  who  remained  behind.  This  he  saw  from  some 
little  distance. 

No.  48.  GEORGHI  DIMITRIEV,  of  Drenovo  near  Serres,  stated  that  his  village  was  burnt 
by  Greek  infantry  on  a  Tuesday  about  noon.  He  saw  an  old  women  named  Helena  Te- 
melcova,  aged  about  80,  shot  and  then  beheaded  by  a  Greek  soldier.  He  was  hidden  be- 
hind some  stones  on  rising  ground  and  shortly  afterward  managed  to  flee.  He  saw  the 
village  burnt  by  the  Greeks. 

No.  49.  MR.  V.  Seen  at  Salonica.  Name  suppressed.  Was  made  prisoner  by  the  Greeks- 
at  Pancherovo.  He  speaks  Greek  well  and  pretended  to  be  a  Greek  and  was  released.  He 
saw  three  men  of  the  village  killed,  apparently  for  motives  of  robbery.  Their  names  were 
Angel  Michail,  Athanas  Bateto,  and  the  latter's  son.  Athanas  had  £T21.  The  peasants  of 
this  village  had  gone  out  to  meet  the  troops  with  a  white  flag.  This  occurred  on  July  23. 
Eleven  prisoners,  who  were  taken  at  the  same  time  as  himself,  were  all  killed  on  the 
hillside  in  the  Kresna  pass.  These  were  armed  men. 

No.  30.    NICOLA  TEMELCOV,  of  Melnik,  formerly  a  teacher,  now  a  merchant. 

Between  July  11  and  July  16,  last,  all  the  Bulgarian  inhabitants  of  the  Melnik  district 
fled  to  Old  Bulgaria,  and  he  went  with  them,  but  had  recently  visited  Melnik.  In  the  village 
of  Sklava,  as  he  passed  through  it,  all  the  women  were  gathered  by  the  Greek  soldiers  in 
the  house  of  Mito  Constantinov,  and  the  women  were  distributed  among  thirty  soldiers. 
One  girl  of  eighteen  named  Matsa  Anton  Mancheva  resisted  stoutly  and  offered  money  to- 
the  amount  of  £T60.  The  Greeks  took  her  money  and  still  attempted  to  violate  her.  She 
resisted  and  was  killed.  Melnik  has  not  been  burnt,  with  the  exception  of  the  officers' 
club,  the  hotel  and  the  post  office.  The  Greek  houses  are  empty  and  the  furniture  gone. 
His  father  and  mother  remained  in  the  town  and  told  him  their  story.  The  Greeks  said 
to  them,  "We  do  not  wish  to  have  bears  living  in  our  country.  We  want  men."  By  "bears" 
they  meant  the  Bulgarians.  The  officers  took  everything  belonging  to  the  witness  on  the 
pretense  that  he  had  fled.  They  demanded  produce  belonging  to  his  father  to  the  amount 
of  18  napoleons.  They  then  took  him  out  to  his  farm  at  Orman-Tchiflik  and  threatened 
him  with  death.  He  paid  £1180  for  his  life  and  was  taken  back  to  Melnik.  All  this- 
was  done  by  officers.  They  took  quantities  of  wheat,  rice  and  barley  from  his  father's  farm 
and  also  the  buffaloes.  The  order  was  given  that  everything  and  everybody  must  be  cleared 
out  of  Melnik  and  go  to  Demir-Hissar,  and  the  government  put  both  automobiles  and  wagons 
at  the  disposal  of  the  Greek  inhabitants  for  this  journey.  Those  who  were  unwilling  to  go 
were  beaten.  This  his  father  related  to  him.  His  father,  an  old  man,  has  since  died 
from  exhaustion  and  mental  worry. 

No.  51.  EXTRACTS  FROM  LETTERS  OF  GREEK  SOLDIERS  found  in  the  mail  of  the  nineteenth 
regiment  of  the  Greek  seventh  division,  captured  by  the  Bulgarians  in  the  region  of  Razlog. 

(/)  RHODOPE,  llth  July,  1913. 

This  war  has  been  very  painful.  We  have  burnt  all  the  villages  abandoned  by  the  Bul- 
garians. They  burn  the  Greek  villages  and  we  the  Bulgarian.  They  massacre,  we  massacre,. 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

-and  against  all  those  of  that  dishonest  nation,  who  fell  into  our  hands,  the  Mannlicher 
rifle  has  done  its  work.  Of  the  1,200  prisoners  we  took  at  Nigrita,  only  forty-one  remain  in 
*he  prisons,  and  everywhere  we  have  been,  we  have  not  left  a  single  root  of  this  race. 

I  embrace  you  tenderly,  also 
your  brother  and  your  wife 
SPILIOTOPOULOS  PHILIPPOS. 

((2)  Mr.  Panaghi  Leventi, 

Doctor 
Aliverion 

Euboea. 

I  also  enclose  herewith,  the  letter  of  congratulation  from  my  commandant,  Mr.  Conto- 
ghiri  in  which  he  praises  my  squadron,  which  on  the  occasion  of  the  short  stay  of  a  few 
days  of  our  division,  received  the  order  at  five  o'clock,  to  march  to  the  north  of  Serres. 
During  the  march,  we  engaged  in  a  fight  with  the  Bulgarian  comitadjis,  whom  we  dispersed, 
;after  having  killed  the  greater  part.    We  burnt  the  two  villages  of  Doutlii  and  Banitza,  the 
'homes  of  the  formidable  comitadjis,  and  passed  everything  through  the  fire,  sparing  only 
-the  women,  the  children,  the  old  people,  and  the  churches.     All  this  was  done  without  pity 
•or  mercy,  executed  with  a  cruel  heart,  and  with  a  condemnation  still  more  cruel. 
Merocostenitza,  12th  July,  1913. 
The  outposts  of  the  Army. 

Love  to  you  and  also  the  others, 
(signature  unreadable)    ••  , 
sergeant 

«(j)  Mr.  Sotir  Panaioannou, 

in  the  village  of  Vitziano,  parish  Ithicou 

Tricala  de  Thessalie. 
River  Nesto,  12th  July,  1913. 

Here  at  Vrondou  (Brodi)  I  took  five  Bulgarians  and  a  girl  from  Serres.  We  shut 
them  up  in  a  prison  and  kept  them  there.  The  girl  was  killed  and  the  Bulgarians  also 
suffered.  We  picked  out  their  eyes  while  they  were  still  alive. 

Yours  affectionately:  COSTI. 

•U)  Bulgarian  Frontier,  llth  July,  1913. 

DEAR  BROTHER  JOANI: 

Here  is  where  the  archie omitadjis  live.  We  have  massacred  them  all.  And  the  places 
-we  have  passed  will  remain  in  my  memory  forever. 

SER.  CLETANIS. 

<5)  RHODOPE,  Bulgarian  Frontier, 

llth  July,  1913. 
BROTHER  MITZO: 

And  from  Serres  to  the  frontier,  we  have  burnt  all  the  Bulgarian  villages.        .        . 
My  address  remains  the  same:  7th  Division,  19th  Regt. ;  12  Battalion  at  Rhodope. 

JOAN  CHRISTO  TSIGARIDIS. 

«5)  NESTOS,  13th  July,  1913. 

Village  Bansta, 
If  you  want  to  know  about  the  parts  where  we  are  marching,  all  are  Bulgarian  villages, 


APPENDICES  309 

and  everyone  has  fled.  Those  who  remain  are  "eaten"  by  the  Mannlicher  rifle  and  we  have 
also  burnt  a  few  villages.  The  Bulgarians  suffered  the  same  fate  at  the  hands  of  the  Ser- 
vians. 

S.  NAKIS. 

<7)  In  the  desert,  12th  July,  1913. 

.  in  Bulgarian  territory,  we  are  beating  the  Bulgarians  who  are  continually  re- 
treating, and  we  are  on  the  point  of  going  to  Sofia.  We  enraged  them  by  burning  the  vil- 
iages,  and  now  and  again  when  we  found  one  or  two,  we  killed  them  like  sparrows 

Your  brother  GEORGE  (name  unreadable) 
I  am  writing  you  in  haste. 

((S)  Zissis  Coutoumas  to  Nicolas  Coutoumas. 

With  the  present  I  give  you  some  news  about  the  war  that  we  have  made  against  the 
Bulgarians.  We  have  beaten  them  and  have  reached  the  Turkish-Bulgarian  frontier.  They 
fled  into  Bulgaria  and  we  massacred  those  who  remained.  Further,  we  have  burnt  the  vil- 
lages. Not  a  single  Bulgarian  has  been  left.  God  only  knows  what  will  come  of  it.  I 
have  nothing  more  to  write  you.  I  remain,  your  Son  Zissis  Coutoumas.  Many  compli- 
ments from  Thimios.  He  is  well  as  also  the  other  young  men  here. 

12th  July,  1913. 

(9)  M.  Zaharia  Kalivanis, 

Erf  os — Milip  o  tamos, 

Rethimo,  Crete. 
RHODOPE,  13th  July,  1913. 
Seal 

•of  the  Commandant  of 
Public  Safety,  Salonica 

We  burn  all  the  Bulgarian  villages  that  we  occupy,  and  kill  all  the  Bulgarians  that  fall 
into  our  hands.  We  have  taken  Nevrocop  and  were  well  received  by  the  Turks,  many  of 
-whom  came  to  our  ranks  to  fight  against  the  Bulgarians.  Our  army  is  in  touch  with  the 
Servian  and  Roumanian  armies,  who  are  32  kilometers  from  Sofia.  With  regard  to  our- 
selves we  are  near  the  ancient  frontier. 

S.  Z.  KALIYANIS. 

</o)  July  15th,  1913. 

MY  BROTHER  SOTIR: 

Thanks  to  God,  I  am  well  at  the  moment  of  writing  you.  We  are  at  present  on  the 
Bulgarian-Thracian  frontier.  As  far  as  the  war  is  concerned,  I  can  not  tell  you  anything 
about  the  situation  and  what  takes  place.  The  things  that  happen  are  such  that  have  never 
occurred  since  the  days  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  Greek  army  sets  fire  to  all  the  villages  where 
there  are  Bulgarians  and  massacres  all  it  meets.  It  is  impossible  to  describe  what  happens. 
God  knows  where  this  will  end.  The  time  of  ...  has  come  for  us  to  start  eating  one 
another. 

Love  from  your  brother  PANAGHIS  BEGLIKIS. 

I  am  writing  'you  in  haste. 

(//)  Bulgarian  Frontier, 

12/VII/1913. 

Everywhere  we  pass,  not  even  the  cats  escape.  We  have  burnt  all  the  Bulgarian  vil- 
lages that  we  have  traversed.  I  can  not  describe  it  to  you  any  better. 

Your  loving  brother 

GEORGES  (corporal). 


310  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

My  address  is  as  follows: 

To  Corporal 
Sterghiou  George, 

12th   Squadron,  3d  Battalion,  19th  Regt. 
7th  Division — if  away,  send  on. 

(12)  RHODOPE,  13th  July,  1913. 

MY  DEAR  LEONIDAS: 

Keep  well,  as  I  am.  That  is  what  I  wish  you.  I  received  your  letter,  which  gave  me 
great  pleasure.  I  also  received  one  from  Aristides,  who  is  well,  and  writes  that  he  has- 
also  been  enrolled,  which  pains  me,  because  my  sufferings  are  such  that  could  not  be  con- 
soled by  tears,  because  everything  is  lost,  because  you  can  not  imagine  what  takes  place  in; 
a  war.  Villages  are  burnt,  and  also  men,  and  we  ourselves  set  fire  and  do  worse  than  the 
Bulgarians. 

Your  affectionate  brother, 

THOMAS  ZAPANTIOTIS. 

..' '  t-  i 

(zj)  Mr.  Demetrios  Chr.  Tsigarida 

For  the  Greek  Army,  at  Mexiata 

as  souvenir  of  the  Hypati — Phtiotis. 

Turco-Bulgarian  war.  COPRIVA  (?),  llth  July,  1913. 

Seal 

of  the  Commandant 
of  the  19th  Regt. 

I  was  given  16  prisoners  to  take  to  the  division  and  I  only  arrived  with  2.  The  others- 
were  killed  in  the  darkness,  massacred  by  me. 

Nico  THEOPHILATOS. 

(14)  IN  BULGARIA,  13th  July,  1913. 

"What  a  cruel  war  is  taking  place  with  the  Bulgarians.  We  have  burnt  everything  be- 
longing to  them,  villages  and  men.  That  is  to  say,  we  massacre  the  Bulgarians.  How 
cruel !  The  country  is  inundated  with  Bulgarians.  If  you  ask  how  many  young  Greeks 
have  perished,  the  number  exceeds  10,000  men. 

Your  Son,  TSANTILAS  NICOLAOS. 

P.  S.  Write  me  about  the  enrolments  that  are  taking  place.  They  are  surely  on  the 
point  of  enlisting  old  men.  Curses  on  Venizelos. 

(75)  To  Georgi  D.  Karka   (Soldier) 

First  Section  of  the  Sanitary  Corps,  9th  Division. 

Arghirocastro, 

Epirus. 
The  River  Nestor, 

12th  July,  1913. 
DEAR  BROTHER  GEORGI: 

Thank  God  I  am  quite  well  after  coming  through  these  five  engagements.  Let  me  tell 
you  that  our  division  has  reached  the  river  Nestor,  that  is  to  say,  the  old  Bulgarian  Fron- 
tier, and  the  Royal  Army  has  passed  this  frontier.  By  the  King's  orders  we  are  setting 
fire  to  all  the  Bulgarian  villages,  because  the  Bulgarians  burned  the  beautiful  town 


APPENDICES  611 

Serres,  also  Nigrita  and  a  lot  of  Greek  villages.  We  have  turned  out  much  crueller  than 
the  Bulgars — we  violated  every  girl  we  met.  Our  division  took  18  pieces  of  artillery  in 
good  condition  and  two  worn  out  pieces,  altogether  20  cannon  and  4  machine  guns.  It  is 
impossible  to  describe  how  the  Bulgars  went  to  pieces  and  ran  away.  We  are  all  well,  ex- 
cept that  K.  Kalourioti  was  wounded  at  Nigrita  and  Evang  the  Macedonian  got  a  bay- 
onet wound  while  on  outpost  duty,  but  both  are  slight  cases.  Remember  me  to  our  coun- 
trymen and  friends,  although  after  coming  through  so  much,  thank  God  I  am  not  afraid 
of  the  Bulgars.  I  have  taken  what  I  had  a  right  to  after  all  they  did  to  us  at  Panghaion. 

My  greeting  to  -you, 

N.  ZERVAS. 
(Some  illegible  words  follow.) 

(i6~)  M.  Aristidi  Thanassia, 

Kaniniati. 
Commune  of  Athanamow, 

Trikala, 

Thessaly. 
14  July,  1913. 
DEAR  COUSIN  : 

I  have  received  your  letter  of  the  1st  and  I  am  very  glad  that  you  are  well,  as, 
after  all,  so  are  we  up  to  now.  Let  me  tell  you,  Aristidi,  all  we  are  going  through  during 
this  Bulgarian  War.  Night  and  day  we  press  on  right  into  Bulgarian  territory  and  at  any 
moment  we  engage  in  a  fight;  but  the  man  who  gets  through  will  be  a  hero  for  his  coun- 
try. My  dear  cousin,  here  we  are  burning  villages  and  killing  Bulgarians,  women  and 
children.  Let  me  tell  you,  too,  that  cousin  G.  Kiritzis  has  a  slight  wound  in  his  foot  and 
that  all  the  rest  of  us,  friends  and  relations  are  very  well  including  our  son-in-law  Yani. 
Give  my  greeting  to  your  father  and  mother  and  your  whole  household,  as  well  as  my 
cousin  Olga. 

That  is  all  I  have  to  say, 

With  a  hearty  hug.     Your  brother, 

ANASTASE  ATH.  PATROS. 

(17)  M.  George  P.  Soumbli, 

Megali  Anastassova, 

Alagonia,  Calamas. 
Rhodope,  12th  July,  1913. 
DEAR  PARENTS  : 

*  *  *  We  got  to  Nevrokop,  where  again  we  were  expected,  for  again  we  fought 
the  entire  day,  and  we  chased  them  (the  enemy)  to  a  place  where  we  set  on  them 
with  our  bayonets  and  took  eighteen  cannon  and  six  machine  guns.  They  managed 
to  get  away  and  we  were  not  able  to  take  prisoners.  We  only  took  a  few,  whom  we  killed, 
for  those  are  our  orders.  Wherever  there  was  a  Bulgarian  village,  we  set  fire  to  it  and 
burned  it,  so  that  this  dirty  race  of  Bulgars  couldn't  spring  up  again.  Now  we  are  at  the 
Bulgarian  frontier,  and  if  they  don't  mend  their  manners,  we  shall  go  to  Sofia. 
With  an  embrace, 

Your  son, 

PERICLI  Sou  MELTS 
7th  Division,  19th  Regiment,  12th  Company, 

Salonica, 


312  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

(/A1)  M.  Christopher  Kranea, 

Rue  Aristotle  et  de  1'Epire  48. 

Athens. 

Rhodope,  14th  July,  1913. 
DEAR  BROTHER  CHRISTOPHER: 

I  am  writing  from  Rhodope,  a  Bulgarian  position,  two  hours  away  from  the  old  Bul- 
garian frontier.  If  God  spares  me  I  shall  write  again.  I  don't  know  how  much  further 
we  shall  go  into  Bulgarian  territory  or  if  we  are  to  have  any  more  fights,  as  I  don't  know 
what  further  resistance  we  shall  have  to  meet.  If  this  war  is  to  be  the  end  of  me,  I  pray 
the  Almighty  to  comfort  you  greatly;  and  above  all  my  mother  and  the  relatives;  but  I  hope 
that  God  will  preserve  my  life.  The  money  you  speak  of  has  not  come  yet.  I  have  sent, 
a  few  "bear-leaders"  into  a  better  world.  A  few  days  back  my  god-father  Vassil  Christon, 
tried  his  hand  at  shooting  eight  comitadjis.  We  had  taken  fifty  whom  we  shared  among 
us.  For  my  share  I  had  six  of  them  and  I  did  polish  them  off. 

That  is  all  I  have  to  say. 

Greeting  from  your  brother, 

DIM.  KRANEAS. 


(zp)  M.  Georges  N.  Yrikaki, 

Vari-Petro,  Cydonia, 

Canea,  Crete. 

Macedonia,  July  12,  1913. 
DEAR  GEORGE: 

*  *  *  After  that  we  went  forward  and  occupied  the  bridge  over  the  Strouma.  A 
lot  of  Bulgars  were  hidden  in  different  spots.  After  we  had  occupied  the  bridge  we  found 
numbers  of  them  every  day,  and  killed  them.  The  Bulgars  have  burned  the  bridge  to  stop 
our  advance  towards  Serres. 

With  greetings, 

F.  VALANTINAKI. 

This  is  my  address — 
STILIAN  VALANTINO, 

19th  Regiment,  3d  Battalion,  9th  Company,  7th  Division. 
Macedonia. 


(20)  To  A.  M.   Nicolas   Hartaloupa, 

Ksilokastro, 
Tricala,   Corinth. 

Rhodopian  Mountains,  18/7/1913. 
DEAR  BROTHER  NICOLAS: 

I  am  very  well  and  I  hope  you  are  as  well  as  I  am.    We  have  turned  up  close  to  the 
Bulgarian  frontier.    We  are  constantly  pressing  on  and  putting  the  enemy  to  flight.    .     .     . 
When  we  pass  Bulgarian  villages  we  set  fire  to  them  all  and  lay  them  waste. 
With  an  embrace, 

Your  brother, 

A.  V.  THODOROPOULOS. 

(Same  address.) 


APPENDICES  313 

To  Mme.  Angheliki  K.  Lihouidi, 

Manastiraki, 

Acarnania, 
Ksiromera — Vonitza. 
Rhodope,  July  13,  1913. 
DEAR  MOTHER: 

I  send  you  my  greetings.    I  am  in  good  health.    *    *    *    We  have  to — such  is  the  order 
— burn  the  villages,  massacre  the  young,  only  sparing  the  aged  and  children.    But  we  are 
hungry.     *     *     * 
With  greeting, 

Your  son, 

JEAN  LIHOUIDIS. 

<£?)  To    M.    Christo   Tchiopra, 

Petrilo,  Arghitea, 

Karditza, 

Thessaly. 

The  River  Nestor, 
July  13,  1913. 
DEAR  KINSFOLK: 

My  greeting  to  you.  I  am  well  and  hope  you  are  in  good  health.  *  *  * 
This  is  something  like  real  war,  not  like  that  with  the  Turks.  We  fight  day  and  night  and 
we  have  burned  all  the  villages. 

With  greetings, 

KAMBAS  NICOLAOS. 

(^5)  Independant  Cretan  Regiment, 

12th  Company, 

To 
Corporal  Em.  N.  Loghiadi. 

Leaskoviki,  Epirus. 
Dobrisnitza,  12th  July,  1913. 

*     *     *     today    I    am    answering  your    letters   of    the   22nd   of    May   and   the   21st   of 
June.     *     *     *    We  have  had  a  little  engagement  near  the  Strouma  with  the  refugees  from 
Koukouch  and  Lahna.    The  guns  mowed  them  down  on  the  road.    We  did  not  succeed  in 
occupying  the  bridge,  which  they  burned  in  their  retreat  toward  Serres. 
This  letter  is  being  sent  from  Mehomia. 

Greeting  from, 

E.  N.  LOGHIADIS. 

{24)  To  M.  Dimitri   Koskinaki, 

Skardelo,  Milopotamo, 

Retimo, 

Crete. 
Nevrokop, 

July  12,  1913. 
DEAR  COUSIN  : 

I  am  well  and  I  hope  you  are,  too.    *    *    *    We  burned  all  the  Bulgarian  villages  on 
our  route  and  we  have  almost  reached  the  old  frontiers  of  Bulgaria. 
With  an  embrace, 

Your  cousin, 

S.  KALIGHEPSIS. 


314  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 


11  July,   1913. 

I  have  not  time  to  write  much;  you  will  probably  find  these  things  in  the  papers.  *  *  * 
It  is  impossible  to  describe  how  the  Bulgarians  are  being  treated.  Even  the  villagers  — 
it  is  butchery  —  not  a  town  or  village  may  hope  to  escape  being  burned.  I  am  well  and  so  is 
cousin  S.  Kolovelonis. 

With  a  loving  embrace, 

Your  brother, 

N.  BRINIA. 

(26)  The  Bulgarian  Frontier, 

llth  July,  1913. 
DEAR  BROTHER  ANASTASE  : 

I  hope  you  are  well.  Don't  worry,  I  am  all  right.  We  have  had  a  lot  of  engage- 
ments, but  God  has  spared  my  life.  We  had  a  fight  at  Nevrokop  and  took  22  cannon  and 
a  lot  of  booty.  They  can't  stand  up  to  us  anywhere,  they  are  running  everywhere.  We 
massacre  all  the  Bulgarians  that  fall  into  our  clutches  and  burn  the  villages.  Our  hard- 
ships are  beyond  words. 

Your  brother, 

NICOLAS  ANGHELIS. 
I  embrace  you  and  kiss  my  father's  hand. 


Dobrountzi, 
13th  July.  1913. 
DEAR  BROTHER: 

All   the  villages  here  are  Bulgarian,  and  the  inhabitants   have  taken  to  flight  as   they 
did  not  wish  to  surrender.    We  set  fire  to  all  the  villages  and  smash  them  up,  —  an  inhuman 
business;  and  I  must  tell  you,  brother,  that  we  shoot  all  the  Bulgarians  we  take,  and  there 
are  a  good  number  of  them. 
With  an  embrace, 

Your  brother, 

AL.  D  -  GEAS. 

(Illegible.) 

(28)  Banitza, 

llth  July,  1913. 
MY  DEAR  LEONIDAS: 

I  can't  find  paper  to  write  to  you,  for  all  the  villages  here  are  burnt  and  all  the  in- 
habitants have  run  away.    We  burn  all  their  villages,  and  now  we  don't  meet  a  living  soul. 
I  must  tell  you  that  we  are  close  upon  the  old  frontiers  of  Bulgaria.     We  have  occupied 
the  whole  of  Macedonia  except  Thrace.    *    *    * 
I  want  an  immediate  answer. 
This  is  my  address, 

CORPORAL   GEORGE  KORKOTZI, 

19th  Regiment,  3d  Battalion,  llth  Company,  7th  Division  —  wherever  we  may  be. 

No.  52.  —  A.  BURNED  VILLAGES  IN  BULGARIAN  TERRITORY,  DISTRICT  OF  STRUMNITSA 
The  list  of  burned  villages  which  follows  will  be  found  to  be  accurate,  in  the  sense 
that  it  includes  no  villages  which  have  not  been  burned.    But  it  is  far  from  complete,  save 
as  regards  the  Kukush  and  Strumnitsa  regions.    Many  other  Bulgarian  villages  were  burned, 


APPENDICES  315 

particularly  in  the  Serres  and  Drama  districts.  In  many  cases  we  have  not  been  able  to 
discover  the  exact  number  of  houses  in  a  village.  It  will  be  noted  that  the  list  includes 
a  few  Turkish  villages  in  Bulgarian  territory  burned  by  the  Greeks,  and  a  few  villages 
burned  by  the  Servians.  The  immense  majority  of  the  villages  are,  however,  Bulgarian 
villages  burned  by  the  Greek  army  in  its  northward  march. 

The  number  of  burned  villages  included  in  this  list  is  161,  and  the  number  of  houses 
burned  is  approximately  14,480. 

We  estimate  that  the  number  of  houses  burned  by  the  Greeks  in  the  second  war  can  not 
fall  short  of  16,000. 

The  figures  which  follow  the  names  indicate  the  number  of  houses  in  each  village. 

Eleven  Bulgarian  villages  burned  by  the  Greeks,  with  number  of  houses  in  each : 
Dabilia  (50),  Novo-selo  (160),  Veliussa,  Monastira,  Svrabite,  Popchevo  (43),  Kostourino 
(130).  Rabortsi  (15),  Cham-Tchiflik  (20),  Baldevtsi  (2),  Zoubovo  (30). 

Nine  Turkish  villages  burned  by  the  Greeks:  Amzali  (150),  Guetcherli  (5),  Tchanakli 
(2),  Novo-Mahala  (2),  Ednokoukovo  (80),  Sekirnik  (30),  Souchitsa  (10),  Svidovitsa 
(10),  Borissovo  (15). 

Two  Patriarchist  villages,  Mokreni  (16),  and  Makrievo  (10),  with  three-fourths  of  the 
town  of  Strumnitsa,  about  1,000  houses  and  shops. 

In  all  over  1,620  houses. 

District  of  Petrits. — Fourteen  villages  burned  by  the  Greeks :  Charbanovo,  Breznitsa, 
Mouraski,  Mitinovo,  Ormanli,  Michnevo,  Starochevo,  Klutch,  Koniarene,  Kalarevo,  Mikrevo, 
Gabrene,  Skrit  and  Smolare  (the  two  last  partially). 

District  of  Raslog.— Dobrinishta   (298). 

District  of  Gorna. — Djoumaia,  Simitli,  Dolno-Souchitsa  and  Srbinovo  (200) — the  last 
burned  by  the  Greeks  after  the  peace  of  Bucharest. 

District  of  Melnik. — Sixteen  Bulgarian  villages  burned  by  the  Greeks :  Spatovo,  Makriko- 
stenovo,  Sklave  (30),  Sveti-Vratch  (200),  Livounovo  (60),  Dolni-Orman  (90),  Tchiflitsite, 
Prepetcheno  (20),  Kapotovo,  Kromidovo,  Harsovo  (100),  Dolna-Oumitsa,  Hotovo,  Spatovo 
(16),  Spanchevo  (30),  Otovo  (60). 

District  of  Ncvrokop. — Seven  Bulgarian  villages  burned  by  the  Greeks :  Dolna-Brotli 
(300),  Libiachovo  (400),  Kara-Keiri  (40),  Godlevo,  Tarlis  (10),  Obidin,  Tcham-Tchiflik. 
and  ten  houses  in  the  town  of  Nevrokop;  also  the  Turkish  village  of  Koprivnik  (100). 

B.  BURNED  VILLAGES  OF  BULGARIAN  NATIONALITY  IN  GREEK  TERRITORY 

District  of  Salonica. — Bulgarian  villages  burned  by  the  Greeks :  Negovan,  Ravna, 
Bogorod. 

District  of  Ziliahovo. — Bulgarian  villages  burned  by  the  Greeks :  Skrijevo,  Libechovo, 
Kalapot  (partially),  Alistratik  (partially),  and  Guredjik. 

District  of  Kukush. — Forty  Bulgarian  villages  burned  by  the  Greeks :  Kukush  town 
1,846  houses,  612  shops,  5  mills.  Idjilar  (70),  Aliodjalar  (50),  Goliabache  (40),  Salamanli 
(15),  Ambar-Keui  (35),  Karaja-Kadar  (25),  Alchaklish  (13),  Seslovo  (30),  Stresovo  (20). 
Chikirlia  (15),  Irikli  (20),  Gramadna  (100),  Alexovo  (100),  Morartsi  (350),  Roschlevo 
(40),  Motolevo  (250),  Planitsa  in  part  (180),  Nimantsi  (40),  Postolar  (38),  Yensko  (45), 
Koujoumarli  (30),  Bigliria  (18),  Kazanovo  (20),  Dramomirtsi  (115)  in  part,  Gavalantsi 
(45),  Kretsovo  (45),  Michailovo  (15),  Kalinovo  (35),  Tsigountsi  (35),  Harsovo  (50), 
Novoseleni  in  part  (20),  Malovtsi  (20),  Vrighitourtsi  (15),  Garbachel  (30),  Haidarli  (10), 
Daoutli  (18).  Tchtemnitsa  (40),  Rayahovo  (150)  in  part,  Gola  (15). 

In  all  4,725  buildings. 

District  of  Doiran. — Eleven  Bulgarian  villages  burned  by  the  Greeks:  Akanjeli  (150), 
Dourbali.  Nicolits,  Pataros,  Sourlevo,  Popovo,  Hassanli,  Brest.  Vladaia.  Dimontsi.  Ratartsi. 


316  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

District  of  Demir-Hissar. — Five  Bulgarian  villages  burned  by  the  Greeks :  Kruchevo 
(800),  Kirchevo  (180),  Tchervishta  (170),  German  (80),  and  Djouta-Mahala. 

District  of  Serres. — Six  Bulgarian  villages  burned  by  the  Greeks:  Doutli  (100), 
Orehovatz  (130),  Drenovo,  Moklen,  Frouchtani,  Banitsa  (120). 

District  of  Gevgheli. — Fifteen  Bulgarian  and  three  Vlach  villages  burned,  mainly  by 
the  Greeks,  but  in  two  cases  by  the  Servians :  Sehovo,  Schlopentsi,  Matchoukovo,  Stnol, 
Baialtsi,  Marventsi,  Orehovitsa,  Smokvitsa,  Balentsi,  Braikovtsi,  Kostourino,  Mouine, 
Stoyacovo,  Fourca,  and  Ohani,  Houma  and  Longountsa  (vlach). 

C.  BURNED  VILLAGES  OF  BULGARIAN  NATIONALITY  IN  SERVIAN  TERRITORY 

District  of  Tikvesh. — Five  Bulgarian  villages  burned  by  the  Servians:  Negotin  (800), 
Kamendol,  Gorna-Dissol,  Haskovo,  Cavadartsi  (in  part)  (15),  etc. 

District  of  Kotchana. — Three  Bulgarian  villages  burned  by  the  Servians:  Sletovo, 
Besikovo,  Priseka,  etc. 


APPENDIX  D 


Documents  Relating  to  Chapter  II 

THE   SERVIANS    IN    THE   SECOND   WAR 

No.  53. — EVIDENCE  OF  GEOGHI  VARNALIEV,  Headmaster  of  the  Bulgarian  School  at 
Kavadartsi,  near  Tikvesh. 

On  July  1,  when  the  battle  of  Krivolak  began,  he  was  arrested  with  seven  other  Bul- 
garian notables  and  informed  by  the  prefect  that  a  state  of  siege  existed,  and  that  they 
would  be  kept  as  hostages  till  the  end  of  the  war.  They  were  three  days  in  prison,  but 
were  released  after  the  Servian  defeat.  The  secretary  of  the  Servian  prefect  did  every- 
thing possible  to  ensure  their  safety.  Some  drunken  gendarmes  were,  however,  left  behind 
in  the  Servian  retreat,  and  these  killed  the  servant  of  the  mayor  and  wounded  a  woman. 
The  Macedonian  volunteers  of  the  Bulgarian  ar.my  then  occupied  the  town  and  behaved  well, 
but  left  on  July  7.  There  then  began  a  systematic  burning  of  all  the  Bulgarian  villages  in 
the  neighborhood.  This  was  carried  out  by  Turks,  accompanied  by  Servian  soldiers  and 
officers.  Among  the  villages  burned  were  Negotin  (800  houses),  Kamendol,  Gornodissal, 
Haskovo,  etc.  The  peasants  from  these  places  came  to  their  town  and  told  their  stories 
of  massacre  and  pillage.  On  July  8,  the  Servians  arrived  in  Kavadartsi  and  killed  twenty- 
five  Bulgarians,  mostly  refugees  from  neighboring  villages,  among  them  were  the  mayor 
and  five  notables  of  their  own  town.  The  mayor  was  accused  of  tearing  up  a  Servian 
flag  and  helping  the  Macedonians.  Two  lads  aged  thirteen  and  fifteen,  named  Dorev, 
were  killed  because  a  bomb  had  exploded  near  their  house,  and  they  were  absurdly  sus- 
pected. He  saw  the  bodies,  which  were  all  buried,  still  bound,  just  outside  the  town.  He 
witnessed  the  pillage  of  about  thirty  shops  and  the  burning  of  fifteen  houses.  Four  women 
went  mad  from  fear  in  their  flight  from  Kavadartsi  and  two  of  them  are  said  to  have 
killed  their  own  children,  lest  they  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  Servians. 

No.  54. — EVIDENCE  OF  Two  OLD  VILLAGERS,  natives  of  Istip,  who  walked  to  Sofia,  a 
journey  of  three  days  and  three  nights,  in  order  to  give  their  testimony  to  the  Commission; 
their  names  must  be  suppressed  since  they  live  in  Servian  territory. 

They  stated  that  they  left  Istip  with  the  Bulgarian  troops  and  sought  refuge  in  the 
neighboring  villages.  Bands  of  Turks  arrived  and  went  round  from  village  to  village, 
burning  the  houses  and  violating  the  women.  In  the  village  Liubotrn,  which  was  burned, 
eleven  men  and  three  women  were  killed  and  most  of  the  women  were  violated.  The 
leader  of  the  Turkish  band  was  a  certain  Yaha,  of  Veles,  who  had  always  led  the  bashi- 
bazouks  under  the  Turks.  He  had  under  him  about  300  men,  and  laid  waste  all  the  country 
around  Istip,  Radovishta  and  Kochana.  Many  women  were  carried  off  by  the  Turks  to 
their  own  villages.  Later  on  the  pomaks  of  Tikvesh  arrived  with  wagons  and  did  much 
plundering.  The  district  was  now  relatively  calm  and  the  Servians  were  disarming  the 
Turks,  but  they  believed  that  the  arms  taken  from  some  Turks  were  secretly  given  back 
to  others. 

[NOTE. — The  above  evidence,  general  in  its  character,  relates  to  much  that  the  wit- 
nesses saw  and  to  much  which  they  learned  from  others.  It  does  not  all  rank  as  first- 
hand evidence,  but  appeared  to  be  too  serious  to  be  disregarded.] 


318  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

No.  55. — EVIDENCE  OF  LIEUTENANT  R.  WADHAM  FISHER  (see  also  No.  9). 

After  the  conclusion  of  peace  Lieutenant  Fisher  visited  the  district  overrun  by  the 
Servian  army  in  the  second  war.  He  found  the  village  of  Sletovo  near  Kotchana,  which  he 
knew  well,  burnt  down.  He  also  visited  the  village  Besikovo.  Here  the  Montenegrins 
had  killed  twenty-eight  of  the  villagers,  a  child  had  been  burned  alive  in  a  house,  and 
four  women  had  died  as  the  result  of  violation.  In  the  next  village,  Priseka,  five  or  six 
men  had  been  killed  and  four  women  had  died  as  the  result  of  violation.  In  these  villages 
everything  had  been  taken,  crops,  clothes  and  money,  and  the  people  were  starving,  with- 
out shelter,  on  the  mountain  side.  The  Servians  had  used  their  corn  in  the  trenches  as 
bedding,  and  the  peasants  were  reduced  to  picking  out  the  grains  from  it.  The  Servians 
were  levying  a  house-tax  of  five  francs,  even  on  burned  houses. 

EXTRACTS  FROM  THE  EVIDENCE  COLLECTED  BY  PROFESSOR  MILETITS 

No.  56. — THE  SCHOOLHOUSE  MASSACRE  AT  SERRES.  Deposition  of  George  T.  Belev, 
of  Strumnitsa,  a  Protestant,  aged  32.  (See  also  Nos.  18-26.) 

Mr.  Belev  was  serving  as  a  bearer  in  the  medical  corps  attached  to  the  Seventieth 
Bulgarian  regiment.  He  had  transported  two  wounded  soldiers  from  Nigrita  to  Serres. 
In  Serres,  on  Friday,  June  21,  he  entered  the  bakery  of  an  acquaintance,  a  man  from  his 
native  town.  He  was  there  arrested  by  Greeks  and  confined  for  two  days,  together  with 
four  other  Bulgarian  soldiers. 

The  deposition  continues  thus: 

On  Tuesday,  June  25,  we  were  taken  to  the  bishop's  palace  to  appear  before  a  com- 
mission. In  the  hall  there  were  several  men  sitting  at  a  table  in  a  corner,  among  them  an 
ecclesiastic.  They  looked  at  us  and  said,  "Take  them  away."  From  there  we  were  taken 
to  the  girls'  school,  near  the  bishopric.  The  door  was  shut,  and  we  were  given  the  word 
of  command  in  Bulgarian,  "March.  Form  ranks."  The  following  eight  persons  had  been 
brought  from  the  bakery  [the  names  follow].  We  found  there  four  soldiers  from  Old 
Bulgaria.  When  we  had  formed  our  ranks,  an  evzone  came  up  to  us,  and  with  him  a 
certain  Captain  Doukas,  and  many  Greeks  of  the  town.  They  took  from  us  one  by  one 
our  coats  and  belts  and  all  the  money  we  had.  From  Theodore  Inegilisov  they  took  eight 
Napoleons  and  a  watch,  and  from  me  a  silver  watch  worth  thirty  francs,  and  ten  francs 
which  were  in  my  purse.  Then  they  placed  us  beside  the  staircase,  drew  their  Turkish 
sabres,  and  ordered  us  to  mount.  Two  of  them  with  drawn  sabres  took  up  position  on 
either  side  of  the  stairs,  and  as  we  went  up  they  rained  blows  upon  us.  I  received  a  blow 
on  the  left  hand.  Pando  Abrachev  had  his  right  hand  broken  and  his  head  cut  open,  and 
the  others  were  also  struck.  We  were  then  driven  into  a  room  about  twenty-five  meters 
square,  where  we  were  kept  during  Tuesday  and  Wednesday. 

On  Tuesday,  we  had  nothing  .to  eat  and  were  not  allowed  to  go  to  the  lavatory  *  *  * 
[He  explains  how  he  dressed  Abrachev's  wound.]  *  *  *  On  Wednesday,  we  each  re- 
ceived half  a  loaf  and  were  allowed  to  go  to  the  lavatory  under  escort.  On  Thursday, 
the  Greek  bishop  arrived  and  went  over  all  the  rooms.  He  made  a  sort  of  speech  to  the 
prisoners.  "We  are  Christians.  Our  Holy  Gospel  forbids  us  to  massacre.  We  are  not 
like  the  Bulgarians,  we  shall  allow  you  all  to  return  to  your  homes.  Fear  nothing,  we  shall 
do  you  no  harm."  He  added,  "Give  them  bread  and  water,"  and  went  away.  We  felt  more 
at  ease,  believing  that  a  bishop  would  not  lie,  and  passed  the  rest  of  the  day  in  hope. 
But  in  the  evening,  men  were  chosen  from  all  the  rooms  and  taken  away,  to  the  number 
of  fourteen.  They  selected  the  Bulgarian  gendarmes  who  had  been  arrested  and  the 
militant  comitadjis,  including  Christo  Dimitrov,  who  had  a  mill  in  which  he  used  to  shelter 
revolutionaries.  *  *  *  Thirteen  of  these  were  slaughtered  on  the  second  story,  and  we 
heard  their  cries.  We  still  hoped  that  a  selection  would  be  made,  and  that  we  should  not 
all  be  killed.  *  *  * 


APPENDICES  319 

Next  day  (Friday,  June  28)  Dimitrov  was  brought  back  alive  to  our  room.  After  him 
came  a  Greek  priest.  He  opened  the  door  of  our  room,  and  said  in  mockery,  "Good  day, 
lads."  We  did  not  answer.  He  repeated  it,  and  still  we  were  silent.  Then  he  said,  "Why 
don't  you  answer?  'Good  day'  is  a  civil  word.  Aren't  you  Bulgarians?"  We  did  not 
answer.  Then  he  asked  us,  "Would  you  like  to  see  your  glorious  Tsar  Ferdinand?  Would 
you  like  to  enter  Salonica.  So  you  shall,  quite  soon."  Then  the  priest  went  away. 

Two  hours  later  we  heard  firing.  Our  troops  were  entering  the  town.  We  were  sure 
that  it  was  our  army,  for  the  Greek  guns  could  not  have  been  heard  from  that  particular 
quarter.  As  soon  as  the  Bulgarian  guns  came  into  action,  the  Greeks  ran  all  over  the  build- 
ing to  gather  us  together  in  one  room.  We  were  seventy  persons,  pressed  like  herrings  in 
a  little  room  and  there  we  remained  for  half  an  hour.  Meanwhile  they  ran  to  see  whether 
the  Bulgarians  were  coming  in.  When  they  had  ascertained  this,  they  made  us  come  out 
two  by  two,  to  bind  our  hands.  Then  those  who  were  bound  were  led  up  to  the  upper 
story  and  killed.  The  first  to  be  taken  up  was  a  little  Greek  of  the  village  of  Kolechino, 
near  Strumnitsa,  who  had  lived  in  Serres  for  seven  years.  He  had  been  imprisoned  by  mis- 
take. He  begged  for  his  liberty,  explaining  that  everyone  knew  he  was  a  Greek,  that  he 
was  married  and  was  a  rich  merchant.  But  no  heed  was  paid  to  him,  and  he  was  killed. 
There  was  time  to  massacre  all  the  seventy  persons;  it  did  not  take  more  than  an  hour. 
There  were  plenty  of  executioners,  and  they  worked  quickly.  Thirty  men  were  bound,  and 
then  when  they  saw  that  this  took  too  long,  they  stopped  binding  us. 

Among  the  executioners  was  Charalambi  Popov,  a  Grecized  Bulgarian,  the  same  baker 
in  whose  house  I  was  arrested.  The  others  were  inhabitants  of  Serres,  and  two  vlachs 
belonging  to  the  Greek  party  from  Poroi.  One  named  Christo  often  came  to  Strumnitsa, 
and  many  a  time  I  have  gone  surety  for  him.  The  other  who  is  lame  is  named  Tzeru,  and 
knows  no  Greek.  He  killed  with  a  yataghan,  with  which  he  severed  the  head  from  the  body. 
The  others  used  Martini  bayonets,  but  some  had  Bulgarian  Mannlicher  bayonets.  *  *  * 
I  was  taken  with  three  others,  two  of  them  men  from  Dibra,  and  none  of  us  were  bound. 
We  mounted  the  stairs,  crossed  a  large  hall  and  entered  a  big  room.  I  went  first  and  the 
executioner  followed  with  his  bayonet  in  his  hand.  *  *  *  We  were  half  dead  with  fear, 
and  could  hardly  walk.  Through  the  door  of  the  room  I  could  see  slaughtered  men,  and 
some  who  were  still  alive  and  groaning.  One  was  decapitated.  The  room  was  full,  and 
the  bodies  lay  two  or  three  on  top  of  each  other.  There  was  no  room  for  me.  Then  the 
executioner  made  me  go  to  another  little  room  which  was  empty.  It  was  my  acquaintance 
the  vlach,  Christo.  I  took  one  step  into  the  room,  and  at  the  next  step  he  struck  me  in  the 
neck.  The  force  of  the  blow  was  broken  by  my  collar,  but  I  fell  on  my  face.  He  then  put 
his  foot  on  my  back,  and  struck  me  six  blows  with  the  bayonet,  on  my  back,  behind  my 
ear,  under  the  right  jaw,  and  in  the  throat.  When  the  sisters  of  charity  afterwards  gave 
me  milk,  it  flowed  through  this  last  wound.  I  don't  remember  crying,  and  did  not  feel 
it  when  the  index  finger  of  my  right  hand  was  cut  off,  nor  did  I  lose  consciousness 
*  *  *  In  the  big  room  three  or  four  people  were  killed  at  once,  but  in  this  little  room  the 
other  victims  had  to  look  on  while  I  was  dealt  with.  I  heard  one  of  the  men  of  Dibra 
struggling  at  the  door  of  the  room  and  trying  to  snatch  the  bayonet,  until  another  execu- 
tioner came  up  to  help,  and  then  they  beat  him  pitilessly.  He  cried  out,  "What  harm  have 
I  done  to  you.  Leave  me  alone."  Then  they  caught  his  hands,  and  flung  him  on  top  of 
me.  I  felt  a  heavy  weight.  They  cut  his  throat  and  finished  him  by  thrusts  in  his  back. 
His  blood  flowed  all  ever  me  and  soaked  my  coat  until  I  felt  the  warm  stream  wetting  my 
body.  He  died  on  the  spot  and  never  stirred.  Two  others  were  then  brought  in  and  killed 
on  top  of  us.  They  did  not  struggle;  they  were  already  half  dead  from  fear.  Then  came 
more. 

Some  time  afterwards  there  was  a  dead  silence.  I  heard  nothing  but  the  firing  of 
rifles  and  cannon?  When  I  realized  that  there  was  none  left  in  the  building  I  decided  to 


320  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

get  out  from  under  the  heap  of  bodies  which  had  been  weighing  on  me  and  drenching  me- 
with  blood  for  about  an  hour.  I  rose  with  difficulty,  sat  down  in  a  corner,  and  dressed  my 
wounds,  knotting  a  handkerchief  round  my  neck  from  which  the  blood  was  flowing.  It  hurt 
a  good  deal,  but  I  drew  the  handkerchief  tight.  I  got  up,  found  that  I  could  walk,  and 
went  into  the  next  room.  There  I  found  Christo  Dimitrov  sitting  among  forty  dead  bodies. 
He  got  up  and  began  to  walk,  and  others  also  stirred.  *  *  *  From  the  window  no  one 
was  to  be  seen,  and  shells  and  balls  were  flying.  A  shell  fell  near  our  building  and  set  it 
on  fire,  and  we  saw  that  we  should  be  burned  alive  unless  we  went  out  *  *  *  Eight 
men  gathered  at  the  door.  There  were  about  twenty  wounded  men  who  might  have  been 
saved,  if  there  had  been  anyone  to  help.  One,  the  ninth,  Ilia,  a  tilemaker  of  Gevgheli,. 
came  down  the  stairs,  but  fell  near  the  door.  *  *  *  [He  goes  on  to  relate  how  he  found 
the  Bulgarian  troops  and  was  placed  in  a  vehicle,  and  ultimately,  after  much  suffering,, 
reached  Mehomia  and  eventually  was  nursed  at  Tatar-Bazardjik.] 

No.  57. — EXTRACTS  FROM  A  DEPOSITION  BY  DR.  P.  G.  LAZNEV,  a  Russian  physician  in 
charge  of  the  Bulgarian  Hospital  at  Serres. 

After  complaining  that  the  Greek  women  of  Serres  pillaged  the  hospital,  and  stating 
that  the  Greek  andartes  behaved  well  in  their  dealings  with  it  after  the  Bulgarian  evacua- 
tion Dr.  Laznev  continues: 

"On  July  11,  the  Bulgarian  infantry  with  mountain  guns  appeared  on  the  heights  which 
command  the  hospital,  and  a  fight  ensued  between  them  and  the  Greek  insurgents  who 
were  sheltered  behind  the  hospital.  The  insurgents  were  driven  back,  and  the  hospital  was  in 
the  possession  of  the  Bulgarians.  That  lasted  only  for  a  half  an  hour,  for  stronger  de- 
tachments of  Greek  infantry  and  cavalry  arrived,  and  a  continuous  exchange  of  rifle  and 
gun  fire  went  on  from  three  to  six  p.m.  As  before,  the  hospital  was  the  center  of  the  fight- 
ing. Our  windows  were  broken  and  I  was  obliged  to  lay  the  sick  on  the  floor  in  order  to 
shelter  them.  One  of  them  was  wounded.  Neither  Greeks  nor  Bulgarians  would  listen 
to  my  remonstrances.  At  the  end  of  the  fight  the  Bulgarians  withdrew.  About  an  hour 
before  their  withdrawal  the  town  was  set  on  fire.  Then  came  the  victors,  fatigued  and 
excited  by  the  fighting.  They  burst  in,  knocked  our  orderly  down  and  beat  him  cruelly, 
threatened  to  kill  the  sick  'because  the  Bulgarians  had  burned  the  town';  struck  my 
assistant  Komarov  on  the  chest  and  shoulders  with  the  butts  of  their  rifles,  and  pointed 
the  barrels  of  their  rifles  at  my  breast.  Finally  I  induced  them  to  go  away.  Others  mean- 
while pillaged  the  upper  story  of  the  hospital,  and  stole  everything,  including  my  personal 
property.  [Details  follow  of  the  difficulties  which  the  doctor  experienced  in  dealing  with 
the  Greek  authorities.]  As  to  the  burning  of  Serres,  I  am  obliged  to  declare  that  I  do  not 
know  its  causes.  I  can  only  make  guesses.  It  may  have  been  caused  by  the  Bulgarian 
shells.  As  a  strong  wind  was  blowing,  a  fire  started  in  one  place  would  spread  easily  to 
the  neighboring  buildings.  I  can  not  accept  the  theory  of  the  Bishop  of  Serres  (that  the 
Bulgarians  first  sprinkled  the  houses  with  petroleum  and  then  two  days  later  set  them  on 
fire).  In  that  case  the  conflagration  would  have  started  simultaneously  in  the  several  quar- 
ters of  the  town." 

No.  58. — DEPOSITION  OF  ILIA  PETROV  LIMONEV,  a  fisherman  of  Doiran,  serving  in  the 
70th  Bulgarian  Regiment  (Fourth  Battalion,  Fifteenth  Company),  was  imprisoned  in  the 
School  at  Serres,  and  succeeded  in  breaking  out  and  disarming  the  sentries.  His  narrative 
contains  two  interesting  details.  His  detachment,  reduced  to  thirty-two  men,  was  separated 
from  its  battalion,  and  retreated  through  Demir-Hissar  to  the  village  of  Kavakli.  On  July 
6,  it  was  surrounded  by  a  Greek  company  numbering  200  men,  and  surrendered.  "After 
disarming  the  Bulgarian  soldiers,  the  Greeks  bound  them  and  massacred  them.  In  this- 


APPENDICES  321 

fashion  twenty- four  Bulgarian  soldiers  were  slaughtered  in  the  most  barbarous  fashion,, 
when  at  length  a  Greek  officer  arrived,  and  said  that  that  was  enough.  The  eight  men 
who  survived,  including  Limonev  himself,  were  brought  to  Serres  on  the  8th,  cruelly 
beaten  and  shut  up  in  the  girls'  school."  Among  the  sixty  Bulgarian  civilians  imprisoned 
with  them  in  an  upper  room,  were  four  women,  one  of  them  very  old.  Describing  what 
he  saw  after  his  escape,  Limonev  states  that  the  Greek  artillery  mistook  the  Greek  refugees 
near  the  station  for  Bulgarians,  turned  their  machine-guns  upon  them,  and  killed  an  im- 
mense number. 

No.  5&z. — DIMITRI  AUGUELOV,  wine  merchant  of  Serres,  arrested  on  July  7,  was  shut 
up  in  the  school,  escaped  with  a  Jewish  prisoner  on  Friday,  and  was  concealed  by  Jews  of 
the  town. 

No.  $8b.  STRATI  GEORGHIEV,  of  the  Dibra  district,  was  arrested  on  July  10  by  ten 
armed  Greeks  and  five  Turks.  A  Turk  told  him  that  all  who  wore  the  costume  of  Dibra. 
would  be  put  to  death,  because  they  were  Bulgarians.  Among  the  corpses  on  Friday  he 
saw  an  old  woman  with  her  head  cut  open,  and  three  young  women,  all  killed.  There 
were  fifty  corpses  in  the  room.  He  escaped  with  Belev  and  the  others,  severely  wounded- 

No.  59. — EVENTS  AROUND  DEMIR-HISSAR. 

A  group  of  Bulgarian  villages  in  the  neighborhood  of  Demir-Hissar  was  the  scene  of  a 
systematic  massacre.  Most  of  the  inhabitants  of  these  villages,  German,  Kruchevo,  Kirt- 
chevo,  and  Tchervishta,  had  fled  early  in  the  second  war.  Letters  were  then  sent  out  over  the 
signature  of  Dr.  Christoteles, '  an  influential  Greek  doctor  of  Demir-Hissar,  which  invited 
them  to  return  and  assured  them  of  safety.  (See  No.  44.)  Marko  Bourakchiev,  of  Kirt- 
chevo  (180  houses)  had  returned  to  his  village  with  about  eighty  other  families.  On  the 
arrival  of  the  Greek  troops  on  July  15  (he  states),  the  villagers  made  them  welcome  and 
brought  all  they  called  for.  Suddenly  he  heard  the  roll  of  a  drum  and  an  indescribable 
tumult  followed,  amid  which  he  heard  the  cries  and  groans  of  the  dying.  He  left  his 
house  and  saw  his  neighbor  Stoiana  Tchalikova  in  a  pool  of  blood,  dead  of  bayonet 
wounds,  and  the  corpse  of  little  Anghel  Paskov.  He  went  back  to  his  own  house  and  saw 
two  or  three  soldiers  searching  his  grandmother  for  money.  She  had  none  and  they  cut 
her  throat  and  plunged  their  bayonets  into  her  breast.  They  then  seized  him  and  took 
him  into  another  house,  where  were  other  soldiers  and  andartes.  They  began  to  discuss- 
something  which  seemed  important.  He  was  forgotten  and  a  soldier  made  him  pour  out 
water  for  him  to  wash  his  blood  stained  hands.  Then  the  soldier  made  a  sign  to  him,, 
and  pointed  to  the  door.  He  fled  as  fast  as  he  could,  and  those  who  pursued  failed  to 
overtake  him.  From  a  hill  he  saw  the  village  in  flames. 

Dimitri  Guidichov  and  Ivan  Radev,  who  also  escaped  from  the  village,  relate  that 
the  men  were  shut  up  in  two  houses  and  burned  alive.  Forty  women  were  shut  up  in 
the  house  of  Anghel  Douriov  and  there  beaten,  undressed,  and  violated.  Four  women 
(named)  were  killed,  and  four  (named)  were  carried  off  by  the  soldiers.  Twenty  peas- 
ants of  Tchervishta  and  Kruchevo  were  also  massacred  at  Kirtchevo,  together  with  two- 
priests. 

Paul  Chavkov  adds  that  he  saw  the  soldiers  taking  seven  or  eight  women  naked  to- 
Gorno-Brodi.  (See  also  No.  44.) 

No.  60. — At  German  the  same  procedure  was  followed.  Thirty  families  returned  as  the 
result  of  Dr.  Christoteles'  letter  and  welcomed  the  Greek  troops.  The  men  were  shut 


322  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

up  in  the  church  and  the  women  in  the  priests'  house.  One  of  the  men,  Dimitri  Georg- 
hiev,  escaped  from  the  church  and  afterwards  met  Apostol  Kostov  of  German,  to  whom 
he  told  his  story.  One  woman  also  escaped,  Stoianka  Konstantinova,  aged  twenty.  It  is 
not  known  where  she  is  at  present.  Some  distance  outside  the  village,  as  she  was  fleeing, 
she  met  her  uncle,  Thorma  Ivanov,  who  was  returning  to  it.  She  could  hardly  speak 
in  her  terror,  and  her  uncle  quotes  these  words :  "I  can't,  I  can't  tell  you  anything.  There's 
no  describing  what  I've  seen.  God !  how  they  tortured  us,  undressed  us  naked,  while  we 
cried  and  wept.  *  *  *  I  am  saved,  but  the  others.  *  *  *  The  village  is  burning. 
They  were  killing  in  the  streets.  Cries  and  the  sound  of  shots  were  coming  from  the 
church.  All  the  men  were  massacred  there."  The  uncle  and  the  niece  fled  together.  He 
reached  Bulgaria,  but  she  remained  behind  on  the  way  with  some  other  peasants  of  Ger- 
man. (See  also  No.  46.) 

No.  61. — ILIA  KONSTANTINOV,  of  Tchervishta,  relates  that  when  the  peasants  of  his 
village  returned  in  response  to  the  doctor's  letters,  twenty  of  their  notables,  himself  among 
them,  were  taken  to  Kirtchevo.  He  saw  them  all  massacred,  the  women  led  away,  and  the 
village  burned,  but  managed  himself  to  escape. 

No.  62. — The  same  thing  happened  at  Kruchevo.  Nearly  all  the  inhabitants  returned 
and  welcomed  the  Greek  troops.  The  officer  made  them  a  speech,  in  which  he  told  them  that 
they  were  all  Greeks  and  not  Bulgarians.  That  same  evening,  the  soldiers  forced  their  way 
into  all  the  houses  (800  houses),  pillaged  everything  and  violated  all  the  women  and  car- 
ried off  the  prettiest  girls. 

Ivan  Bojov  and  Haralampi  Jankoulov  relate  some  incidents  which  they  witnessed  in  the 
sack  of  Kruchevo.  The  soldiers  (1)  robbed  George  Tochev  of  £1250;  (2)  robbed  Ivan 
Kakidine  and  killed  him  and  his  wife;  (3)  killed  the  widow,  Ransa  Hadjieva,  because  she 
had  less  money  than  they  demanded;  (4)  killed  Soultana  Xalianova  because  she  locked  her 
house  to  protect  her  two  daughters  and  daughter-in-law;  (5)  violated  and  then  killed 
Vela  Harmanova  and  Ransa  Souchova;  (6)  took  the  daughter  of  the  priest,  Theodore 
Staev,  gouged  but  his  eyes,  and  two  days  later  took  him  .>to  Kirtchevo,  where  he  was 
killed  with  the  other  notables. 

No.  63. — SUMMARY  OF  EVIDENCE  COLLECTED  BY  PROFESSOR  MILETITS. 

(a)  Athanase  Ivanov  of  Kukush  who  fled   from  the  town  on  July  4,  saw   from  his 
brother's   house  at  a  distance  of  three  or  four  hundred  paces  the  slaughter  of  two  old 
men,  three  women  and  a  little  girl,  by  the  Greek  cavalry.     The  Greeks  were  then  driven 
back  by  Bulgarian  cavalry  and  the  witness  fled  with  the  latter. 

(b)  Kolio  Delikirov  and  Ivan  Milev,  of  Akangeli,  state  that  the  Greek  officer  (see  Nos. 
39-43)   ordered  the  villagers  to  bring  their  arms  and  all  the  money  they  possessed.     The 
arms  were  given  to  the  Turks,  and  the  money  kept  by  the  Greeks.    Four  peasants  (named") 
brought  each  of  them  from  £T100  to  £1150.    While  the  arms  were  being  given  up,  a  rifle 
went  off  by  accident,  and  the  Greek  soldiers  fell  upon  the  peasants,  who  fled  in  every  direc- 
tion.   But  they  were  soon  surrounded  and  bound.     Fifteen  only  were  released,  in  order  to 
fetch  food  for  the  soldiers ;  some  of  these  fled  and  hid.    Those  who  remained  in  the  hands 
of  the  Greeks  were  massacred.    *    *    *    The  young  women  were  taken  to  a  place  called 
Karakol  and  violated.     Two  girls  from   Pataros,   who  were  in  the  house  of  the  teacher, 
Dimo  Christov,  were  violated  until  they  died. 

(c)  Vanghel  Kazanski,  of  Kazanovo,  saw  the   Greek  cavalry  between   Gavalantsi  and 
Dragomirtsi  riding  down  old  men  and  women  who  were  fleeing.     They  shot  Mitza  Kou- 
schinov,  and  then  dismounted,  but  he  could  not  see  what  followed. 


APPENDICES  323 

(d)  Mito  P.  Stoyanov,  of  Moritolovo,  states  that  Greek  cavalry  killed  the  mayor  and 
gendarme  of  the  village  with  their  sabres.  » 

(e)  Mito  Nicolov  and  his  brother,   Petro,  of  Doiran,  in  their  flight,  saw  three  Bul- 
garian villagers  fleeing  from  Kodjamatli  overtaken  by  Greek  cavalry  and  killed. 

(f)  Thomas   Pop    Stoyanov,   son   of   the   priest   of   Dolna   Djoumaia,   states   that  his 
father  and  twenty-five  notables  of  the  village  were  killed  by  the  Greek  troops,  and  that  four 
women  were  beaten  or  violated  until  they  died  [gives  names]. 

(g)  Gotze  Ivanov,  of  Popovo,  who  left  his  village  on  July  6,  states  that  the  Greeks 
gathered  the  arms  of  the  peasants  and  pillaged.    The  men  were  separated  from  the  women 
and  on  the  first  day  thirty  disappeared.     The  women  and  girls  were  gathered  in  the  house 
of  Colio  Theodorov  and  violated.    Slava  Coleva  was  violated  and  then  killed  in  the  street. 
Only  three  men  escaped  alive.     The-  village  was  burned. 

(h)  Eftim  Mitev,  of  Moklen,  states  that  fifteen  shepherds  of  his  village,  whom  he 
names,  were  caught  by  the  Greeks  near  Kalapot  and  massacred. 

(i)  Nicholas  Anastasov,  of  Alistratik,  states  that  Greek  troops  killed  nine  Bulgarian 
villagers,  after  first  imprisoning  them,  also  two  young  women  and  four  children. 

(j)  Ivan  Christodorov,  of  Guredjik,  states  that  he  saw  Greek  soldiers  enter  the  houses 
of  the  village  and  begin  to  violate  all  the  women.  He  fled. 

(k)  G.  Markov,  of  Pleva,  states  that  forty  men  of  his  village  were  taken  outside  it 
by  the  Greeks  and  slaughtered. 

(1)  Blagoi  Ikonomov,  of  Mehomia,  names  four  men  killed  and  two  women  violated  in 
his  town.  There  were  others. 

(m)  Dinka  Ivanov,  of  Marikostenovo,  states  that  all  the  women  in  his  village  were 
violated.  He  fled,  was  fired  on,  but  escaped. 

(n)  Ivan  Stoitchev,  of  Sveti-Vratch,  says  that  the  same  thing  happened  there,  and  also 
at  Polenitsa. 

(o)  At  Pancherevo.  the  people  awaited  the  Greeks  and  welcomed  them,  and  were 
rewarded  by  the  killing  of  six,  and  the  carrying  off  of  ten,  of  whom  three  escaped. 

(p)  At  Grada,  all  the  women  were  violated.     At  Matchevo,  four  villagers  were  killed. 

(q)  At  Roussinovo,  a  woman  died  as  the  result  of  violation,  three  men  were  killed, 
and  two  women  and  a  girl  were  carried  off  by  the  Greeks.  The  village  was  burned. 

(r)  At  Smoimirtsi,  the  priest  and  people  went  out  to  meet  the  Greeks.  The  priest 
was  tortured  and  died.  A  man  was  killed. 

(s)  From  Vladimirovo,  fourteen  girls  and  an  old  woman  were  carried  off  by  the 
Greeks. 

(t)  The  people  of  Oumlena  met  the  Greek  troops.  All  the  women  were  violated.  Two 
were  carried  off,  and  kept  for  six  days  by  the  officers.  One  old  woman  died  of  ill-treat- 
ment, two  men  killed  and  five  houses  were  burned. 

No.  64. — From  the  official  reports  of  some  of  the  Bulgarian  prefects  in  the  new  terri- 
tories, we  extract  the  following  statements : 

(a)  The  losses  due  to  the  systematic  pillage  by  the  Greek  army  in  the  following  places 
is  estimated  thus  in  francs : 

MEHOMIA.  Grain,  356,850  fr.;  cattle,  164  fr.;  household  goods,  402,200  fr.; 
merchandise,  160.24  f  r. ;  total,  759,374.24  fr. 

BANSKO.  Grain,  350,000  fr.;  cattle,  200,000  fr.;  household  goods,  340,000  fr.;  mer- 
chandise, 200,000  fr.;  total,  1,090.000  fr. 

NANIA.  Grain,  30,000  f  r. ;  cattle,  35,000  fr.;  household  goods,  41,000  fr.;  merchan- 
dise, 5,000  fr.;  total,  111,000  fr. 


-324  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

DOBRINISHTA.  Loss  by  burning,  1,145,000  fr. ;  by  pillage  of  grain,  200,000  fr. ; 
cattle,  40,000  fr.;  total,  1,385,000  fr. 

Further,  in  Mehomia,  seven  old  men  were  killed,  two  women  beaten  to  death,  and 
eleven  old  women  violated.  At  Bansko  five  men  were  killed  and  four  old  women 
violated. 

(b)  At  Petrits,  twenty  of  the  Bulgarian  citizens  were  tortured  by  the  Greeks  to  ex- 
tort money.     The  method  was  to  bind  their  arms  behind  their  backs  and  then  to  twist  the 
ropes  with  an  iron  instrument,  one  specimen  of  which  was  left  behind.     Twenty  names  are 
.given,  with  the  sums  extorted,  which  range  from  £T3  to  £T25.     Four  were  killed.     There 
were  many  violations,  but  the  victims  conceal  their  names. 

(c)  In   the    Strumnitsa   district,    occupied   partly   by   Greeks   and   partly   by    Servians, 
£T90  in  money  was  taken  by  soldiers  from  seven  men   [named]   in  the  village  of  Rablich, 

j6T160  at  Smiliantsi,  £T100  at  Inevo,  £T200  at  Yargorilitsa,  £T70  at  Radovitsa,  etc.  Six 
men,  three  women,  and  several  children  [named]  were  killed  at  Loubnitsa,  five  men  and  a 
-woman  [named]  at  Radovitch,  two  women  [named]  at  Oraovitsa,  and  seven  inhabitants 
[no  names]  at  Pideresch. 

No.  65. — EXTRACTS  FROM  AN  OFFICIAL  REPORT  (communicated)  by  OFFICER  CANDIDATE 
PENEV,  Aide-de-Camp  of  the  first  battalion  of  the  26th  Infantry. 

On  the  road  leading  to  Strumnitsa,  between  the  villages  Ormanovo  and  Novo  Selo, 
in  the  defile  on  the  right  bank  of  the  river,  I  found  a  soldier  of  the  Tenth  (Rhodope)  In- 
fantry crucified  on  a  poplar  tree  by  means  of  telegraph  wires.  His  face  had  been  sprinkled 
with  petroleum  and  burned.  I  recognized  that  he  was  a  soldier  from  the  epaulettes  which 
had  been  torn  off  and  flung  down  near  him.  The  body  was  already  in  a  state  of  decom- 
position. Further  to  the  west  I  found  another  soldier  of  the  Thirtieth  Infantry.  His  body 
was  buried  in  the  sand,  and  nothing  was  visible  but  the  head,  which  had  been  sprinkled 
with  petroleum  and  burned.  The  eyes,  nose  and  ears  had  disappeared.  A  soldier  of  the 
First  (Prince  Alexander's)  Infantry  was  hanging  head  downwards,  with  his  feet  bound  with 
telegraph  wire.  The  epaulettes  lying  in  the  mud  showed  that  the  unhappy  man  was  a 
mechanician.  His  ears  and  hands  had  been  cut  off,  and  his  eyes  torn  out.  Further  along  the 
same  road  I  found  many  other  unburied  bodies  mutilated,  belonging  to  soldiers  of  the. 
Second,  Sixth  and  Eighth  divisions. 

(NOTE. — It  is  proper  to  note  that  the  authors  of  these  disgusting  outrages  may  possibly 
have  been  Turks.) 

On  the  way  the  peasants  told  us  with  tears  in  their  eyes  of  the  inhuman  treatment 
which  they  had  met  with  from  Greek  officers  and  soldiers.  At  Ormanovo,  the  comman- 
dant of  Petrits  had  all  the  men  imprisoned  in  the  police  office,  where  they  were  kept  without 
food  for  three  days,  and  ill-treated  by  the  Greek  soldiers.  They  were  made  to  pay  £T1 
(23  fr.)  for  a  drink  of  water.  All  the  women  and  all  the  girls  over  eight  years  of  age, 
were  shut  up  in  a  house  and  violated.  The  same  thing  happened  in  Bossilovo,  Dabine 
and  Robovo.  In  this  last  village  the  Greek  soldiers  bound  the  priest  and  violated  first  his 
daughter  and  then  the  other  women  before  his  eyes.  They  then  shot  the  priest  and  his 
daughter  and  burned  the  village. 

Two-thirds  of  the  town  of  Strumnitsa  has  been  burned,  notably  the  "Grecoman"  and 
Turkish  quarters,  and  some  Greek  houses  in  the  Bulgarian  quarter,  together  with  the 
public  buildings  and  the  barracks.  At  the  moment  when  the  Greeks  were  about  to  set 
fire  to  the  Bulgarian  quarter,  where  several  houses  were  already  in  flames,  Mr.  Cooper, 
the  American  Protestant  missionary,  arrived  from  Salonica.  Mr.  Cooper  went  to  the  Greek 
commandant  and  begged  him  to  stop  the  burning,  declaring  that  he  would  appeal  TO  the 


APPENDICES  325 

^British  consul  at  Salonica.  The  fire  was  stopped  by  order  of  the  commandant.  I  have 
•this  statement  from  Mr.  Cooper  himself,  who  sent  photographs  of  the  town  burned  by  the 
•Greeks  to  the  British  consul.  The  new  Bulgarian  church,  a  solid  stone  building,  is  half  de- 
stroyed by  three  bombs  which  the  Greeks  placed  in  it  to  blow  it  up.  The  Bulgarian  hospitals 
are  also  in  ashes,  and  the  Bulgarian  wounded  who  had  remained  there  were  left  without 
care  or  food.  The  Greek  sentinels  appropriated  all  the  bread,  milk,  etc.,  which  the  good 
women  of  the  town  brought  to  the  soldiers.  Finally  the  wounded  soldiers  were  shut  up  in 
the  Turkish  tower,  which  was  set  on  fire.  Their  charred  bodies  were  still  lying  there  on 
September  16,  when  the  Greeks  evacuated  the  town.  *  *  *  A  school  teacher  informed  me 
that  on  the  night  of  August  23,  she  was  taken  to  the  barracks,  where  she  was  first  outraged 
"by  the  Greek  commander  and  then  by  twenty-four  soldiers,  one  after  the  other.  She  is  now 
:in  a  pitiful  condition. 


APPENDIX  E 


Documents  Relating  to  Chapter  III 

THE  ACCUSATION 

REPORT  BY  A  RUSSIAN  OFFICER 

(From  Le  Jeune-Turc,  August  26  and  27,  1913) 

On  August  20  the  London  Daily  Telegraph  published  an  interesting  report  on  the 
Bulgarian  atrocities  in  Thrace,  and  particularly  at  Adrianople. 

This  report,  of  which  the  text  is  given  below,  came  from  a  Russian  official  and  was 
transmitted  to  St.  Petersburg. 

I  had  occasion  to  visit  Adrianople  and  its  environs  in  company  with  ten  or  more 
foreign  correspondents  representing  the  largest  newspapers  and  telegraphic  agencies. 
The  eager  readiness  with  which  the  Turkish  government  gave  us  the  necessary  per- 
mits and  afforded  us  facilities  for  making  our  inquiries,  prove  that  the  Turks  felt 
sure  that  we  could  make  no  discoveries  that  would  harm  them;  that  on  the  con- 
trary, publication  of  the  truth  could  only  be  to  their  interest;  a  most  thorough  and 
detailed  inquiry  proved  that  in  this  the  Turks  were  right.  I  shall  say  nothing  of 
the  atrocious  manner  in  which  15,000  Turkish  prisoners  and  some  5,000  Turkish 
civilians  were  treated  in  the  first  four  days  during  which  they  were  mewed  up  like 
cattle  in  the  island  of  Sarai,  where,  in  the  rain,  they  perished  of  cold  and  hunger, 
with  no  food  but  the  bark  of  trees  and  the  soles  of  their  old  shoes.  They  died  in 
hundreds  every  day,  so  that  when  the  time  for  departure  to  Bulgaria  came,  there 
were  but  some  10,000  of  them  left.  That  is  well  known. 

I  shall  confine  myself  to  facts  not  hitherto  published.  The  diplomatic  corps 
and  the  inhabitants,  whether  Turkish,  Greek  or  Israelite,  are  unanimous  in  the 
indignation  with  which  they  describe  the  excesses  of  the  Bulgarian  occupation. 

In  most  of  the  better  Mussulman  houses  the  windows  and  doors  were  battered 
in,  the  furniture  taken  away ;  even  the  houses  of  the  generals  were  plundered,  as 
for  example  that  of  Abouk  Pasha,  who  commanded  the  Fourth  Army  Corps. 

Not  a  single  valuable  carpet  was  left  in  any  of  the  mosques,  including  the  cele- 
brated mosque  of  Sultan  Selim. 

The  library  belonging  to  the  latter,  a  collection  in  its  kind  unique,  was  also 
very  severely  handled.  Burglary  was  not  confined  to  the  houses  of  the  Turks.  Those 
belonging  to  Greeks  and  Israelites  suffered  in  the  same  way.  Train  loads  of  so-called 
war  booty  were  sent  to  Sofia.  These  are  concrete  facts.  Soldiers  armed  with  rifles 
carried  off  a  quantity  of  jewels  and  precious  antiques  from  the  house  of  two  Greeks, 
the  brothers  Alexandre  and  Jean  Thalassinos.  These  soldiers  also  tore  rings  and 
bracelets  from  the  hands  of  the  sister  of  the  Thalassinos.  A  patrol  appearing  in  the 
house  of  the  merchant  Avramidi  on  the  usual  pretext  of  searching  for  arms,  carried 
off  £170  in  a  trunk. 

Colonel  Zlatanoy,  head  of  the  gendarmerie,  put  the  brothers  Athanasius  and 
Chritodoulos  Stavridis  in  prison,  and  only  set  them  free  on  payment  of  forty  pounds. 

A  rich  Austrian-Israelite,  Rodrigues,  left  his  house  in  the  charge  of  three  Bul- 
garian officers  on  his  departure  for  Constantinople ;  on  his  return  he  found  his 
house  empty.  Everything,  even  the  piano,  had  disappeared  and  been  sent  to  Sofia. 
In  the  same  way  the  houses  of  two  rich  Israelites,  Moses  Behmoiras  and  Benaroya, 
were  plundered.  Rich  property  owners,  particularly  Moslems,  were  forced  by  threats 
of  death  to  consent  to  fictitious  sales  or  long  lease  of  their  holdings.  A  case  of  this 


APPENDICES  327 

kind  is  that  of  Ibrahim-bey,  a  man  of  large  independent  means,  living  in  Abdula- 
Hamam  Street.  Chopov,  the  head  of  police,  himself  sent  three  cases  of  stolen  carpets 
to  Sofia,  using  a  Russian  subject  as  his  intermediary. 

Every  morning  the  dead  bodies  of  numerous  Moslems  killed  in  the  night,  were 
found.  Even  now  the  corpses  of  Turkish  prisoners  covered  with  wounds  are  pulled 
out  of  the  public  wells.  The  authorities  never  troubled  about  trifles  of  this  kind. 

Among  the  most  revolting  and  best  known  cases  is  that  of  the  murder  of  a 
captive  Turkish  officer  by  a  Bulgarian  soldier  in  the  middle  of  the  open  street  on  the 
first  day  of  the  Bulgarian  occupation.  He  was  an  old  man,  so  worn  by  the  privations 
and  fatigue  of  the  siege  that  he  had  not  the  strength  to  walk.  The  soldier  forced 
him  on  by  hitting  him  with  the  butt  end  of  his  musket.  An  Israelite,  Salomon 
Behmi,  implored  the  soldier  to  have  pity  and  let  the  old  man  rest.  Enraged  by  this 
intervention,  the  soldier  killed  both  men  with  his  bayonet.  On  the  same  day  eight 
soldiers  plundered  the  house  of  three  Turkish  brothers,  clockmakers,  and  carried  off 
more  than  500  watches.  One  of  them,  Aziz  Ahmed,  they  killed  with  their  bayonets 
and  went  on  striking  him  even  after  he  was  dead.  The  others  escaped  by  flight. 

On  the  third  day  of  the  occupation  some  twenty  Bulgarian  soldiers  first 
plundered  and  then  hideously  butchered  thirteen  Turks,  three  being  Mollahs,  and 
Aziz  Youssouv,  the  Muezzin,  in  the  Miri-Miran  mosque.  I  saw  the  traces  of  blood 
there  myself  and  my  colleagues  photographed  them. 

An  even  more  revolting  story  is  that  of  ten  Turkish  soldiers  who  are  at  this 
moment  undergoing  treatment  in  the  Egyptian  Red  Cross  hospital. 

On  evacuating  Adrianople,  the  Bulgarians  sent  200  Turkish  prisoners,  under 
escort,  to  Mustapha  Pasha;  all  the  sick  and  wounded  who  had  not  sufficient  strength 
to  march  were  killed  on  the  way. 

The  column  was  then  divided  into  three;  the  body  containing  the  ten  soldiers 
referred  to  above,  was  composed  of  sixty  prisoners.  At  a  given  moment  the  Bul- 
garians told  them  that  they  were  free  and  could  go  where  they  would.  The  wretches 
were  not  given  time  to  take  a  dozen  steps  before  the  Bulgarians  opened  fire  on  them 
by  their  officers'  orders.  They  were  all  killed  with  the  exception  of  ten,  who  were 
severely  wounded  and  pretended  to  be  dead.  For  four  whole  days  they  lay  hidden 
in  the  forest,  without  any  food.  Among  them  were  Camber  Ouglou  Camber,  Hassan 
Ouglou  Hay,  Emis  Ouglou  Emin,  belonging  to  the  first  and  second  battalions  of  the 
Kirk  Kilisse  redifs.  [The  other  names  follow.]  Almost  all  of  them  suffered  from 
gangrene,  from  which  two  have  already  died.  The  fate  of  the  other  two  bodies  is 
unknown.  The  Greek  Metropolitan  describes  how  two  priests  sent  out  with  gendarmes 
in  search  of  mishandled  Greeks,  discovered  dozens  of  corpses  of  captives,  riddled 
with  bullets  and  bayonet  wounds,  on  the  banks  of  the  Maritza.  Hassiz  Effendi,  school- 
master in  the  village  of  Koumarli,  reports  officially  that  the  retreating  Bulgarians 
collected  some  fifty  Moslems  in  the  mosque  under  pretext  of  searching  them  for 
arms,  and  massacred  them  there ;  further  that  in  the  village  of  Amour,  the  Bul- 
garians carried  off  two  Mussulman  girls,  the  eldest  being  twelve  years  old.  Their 
fate  is  unknown. 

Hassiz  Effendi  further  notes  with  satisfaction  that  in  many  villages  numbers  of 
Moslems  were  rescued  by  the  Greek  women. 

In  bringing  this  martyrology  to  a  close,  I  should  like  to  mention  a  fact  of  in- 
credible atrocity.  On  the  first  news  of  the  approach  of  the  Turks — Sunday,  July 
7 — the  Bulgarians  set  fire  to  the  provision  depot  at  the  Karagatch  station. 

Some  starving  Greeks  saved  several  sacks  of  meal.  On  the  following  Monday 
the  Bulgarians  returned,  arrested  forty-five  of  these  wretches  and  binding  them  to- 
gether in  fours,  cast  them  so  into  the  Maritza,  while  they  fired  on  any  who  attempted 
to  escape.  Only  a  single  individual,  Panteleimon,  succeeded  in  effecting  an  escape  by 
sinking  under  water  and  pretending  to  be  dead.  Some  days  later  the  corpses  were 
drawn  up.  I  will  send  photographs  of  the  drowned  men. 

What  the  women  of  Adrianople  have  had  to  endure  is  beyond  imagination. 

Outrages  were  committed  against  Greek,  Jewish  and  even  Armenian  women, 
despite  the  Armenians'  devotion  to  the  Bulgarian  cause.  Naturally  the  worst 
violence  was  directed  against  the  Turkish  women.  Respect  was  shown  neither  for 
rank  nor  age.  Among  the  women  violated  there  were  as  many  girls  of  tender  years 
as  aged  women.  Many  of  these  girls  are  now  actually  with  child.  And  those  who 
could  afford  to  do  so  have  gone  away  to  hide  their  shame  in  remote  regions.  Many 
have  lost  their  reason.  Most  keep  silent  about  their  misfortune,  for  reasons  easy  to 
understand. 


328  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Stories  by   Witnesses 

Here  are  some  examples:  Hamid  Nouri,  mufti  of  Adrianople,  told  me  the  fol- 
lowing story  with  tears  in  his  eyes :  "Some  days  before  the  departure  of  the  Bul- 
garians many  persons  passed  the  night  under  his  roof  because  of  the  threats  they 
had  uttered  of  destroying  the  town  and  exterminating  the  population.  Opposite  to 
him  there  dwelt  the  wife  of  a  Turkish  Major,  held  prisoner  in  Bulgaria,  with  her  two 
young  daughters.  An  hour  after  sunset  piercing  cries  were  heard  coming  from  this 
house :  'Take  whatever  you  will  but  do  not  touch  my  daughters.  Are  there  no  Moslems 
to  defend  our  honor?'  The  mufti  sent  the  Bulgarian  soldiers,  assigned  him  by  the 
authorities  to  protect  his  many-times  pillaged  abode,  to  succor  the  women.  A 
moment  later  a  soldier  came  back  and  told  him  indignantly  that  all  the  Bulgarian 
soldiers  were  violating  the  three  women  but  that  he  could  do  nothing  for  they 
threatened  to  kill  them  with  their  muskets.  For  three  hours  the  despairing  cries  and 
groans  of  the  women  went  on.  When  the  soldiers  departed  the  mother  and  daughters 
lay  senseless.  All  the  persons  who  had  sought  asylum  with  the  mufti  on  this  night 
declare  that  they  are  ready  to  bear  witness  to  the  truth  of  this  story." 

Another  example.  On  the  same  day  four  Bulgarian  officers  entered  the  house  of 
a  rich  Israelite,  Salomon  ben  Bassat.  The  women  and  young  girls  made  their  escape 
by  clambering  over  a  wall  into  the  neighboring  houses :  but  the  children  were  left 
on  the  first  story.  A  female  servant,  aged  eighteen,  who  came  back  for  them,  was 
violated  twice  by  each  of  the  officers;  at  last  she  escaped  by  saying  that  they  would 
find  the  lovely  daughter  of  the  owner  of  the  house  in  the  upper  story.  The  officers 
went  up  and  the  girl  fled,  leaving  bloody  tracks  behind  her.  She  is  still  in  hospital. 

The  mufti  referred  to  above  and  all  the  inhabitants  without  distinction  of  religion 
say  that  a  few  days  after  the  entry  the  Bulgarians  closed  all  the  mosques  which  had 
previously  been  dishonored  and  used  as  latrines.  Bulgarian  soldiers  relieved  them- 
selves publicly  from  the  minarets  in  order  to  insult  the  Moslems.  They  imitated  the 
Muezzin's  call  and  uttered  vulgar  indecencies  about  Mahomet,  religion,  the  Sultan 
and  Choukri  Pasha,  the  former  governor  of  the  fortress. 

On  receiving  a  complaint  from  the  mufti,  General  Veltchev,  the  Bulgarian  com- 
mander, demanded  to  have  the  culprits  pointed  out.  When  the  mufti  showed  him, 
from  a  window,  a  Bulgarian  soldier  in  the  act  of  satisfying  a  natural  need  from  the 
summit  of  the  minaret,  General  Veltchev  replied  sarcastically  that  "one  can  not,  after 
all,  deprive  a  poor  soldier  of  inoffensive  distractions." 

General  Veltchev 

At  this  stage  it  may  be  observed  that  the  unanimous  declarations  of  the  consuls, 
the  Metropolitan,  the  mufti  and  all  those  who  had  opportunity  of  speaking  with 
General  Veltchev,  go  to  show  that  he  was  always  excessively  cruel  and  brutally 
arrogant.  He  said  openly — and  the  remark  appears  to  harmonize  with  the  serious 
views  of  his  government — that  Bulgaria  had  no  need  either  of  Greeks  or  Moslems, 
and  that  they  would  take  advantage  of  the  first  opportunity  to  wipe  out  the  whole 
Greek  and  Mussulman  population.  He  expressed  the  intention  of  replacing  them  with 
28,000  Armenians  from  Rodosto  and  Malgara. 

That  this  was  no  vain  threat  was  proved  by  the  atrocious  treatment  to  which 
the  Turkish  prisoners  and  male  population  were  subjected  during  the  first  days  of 
the  Bulgarian  occupation.  To  this  day  the  cannon  of  the  Keyi  fort  are  leveled  at 
the  town. 

I  may  mention  here  a  characteristic  incident  in  which  the  Greek  Metropolitan 
of  Adrianople  played  a  part,  by  way  of  giving  a  clearer  picture  of  this  Bulgarian 
general,  who  appears  unfortunately  to  have  been  a  pupil  at  our  military  academy. 
On  June  25,  His  Eminence  Polycarp  went  to  the  government  to  ask  to  be  permitted 
to  put  up  for  the  night  Athanasius,  Bishop  of  Kavala,  who  had  been  brought  hither, 
with  twenty  notables  belonging  to  the  town,  under  escort,  all  of  them  having  been 
kept  standing  throughout  the  whole  day  in  the  court  in  the  midst  of  every  kind  of 
prisoner.  Veltchev  brutally  told  Monsignor  Polycarp  that  he  was  going  to  hang  and 
shoot  all  the  Greek  notables  of  Adrianople,  beginning  with  the  Metropolitan,  because 
instead  of  remaining  quiet  they  showed  themselves  hostile  to  the  Bulgarians.  On 
the  Metropolitan's  attempting  to  justify  himself,  Veltchev  cried  out  savagely  in 
Turkish:  "Sous!"  (Be  silent!)  The  savage  reproof  of  the  general  lasted  for  an 
hour,  during  which  the  orthodox  prelate  stood.  Veltchev  addressed  him  as  "thou" 
throughout  and  continually  threatened  him  and  all  the  Greeks  with  death.  Finally 


APPENDICES  329 

losing  patience,  the  Metropolitan  could  bear  no  more.  "Massacre,"  he  cried,  using  the 
familiar  form.  "Don't  be  afraid,  I  shall  massacre"  replied  the  brave  general,  "but 
I  shall  not,  naturally,  ask  your  permission  to  do  so." 

It  is  necessary  for  an  understanding  of  the  general's  mind  to  remember  that  the 
Bulgarians,  from  the  Commander-in-Chief  down  to  the  last  soldier,  never  ceased 
repeating  "Adrianople  has  been  taken  by  our  arms  at  the  cost  of  the  blood  and  lives 
of  thousands  of  Bulgarians.  Therefore  the  place  and  even  the  lives  of  the  inhabitants 
belong  to  us ;  we  have  the  right  to  do  whatever  we  please."  This  threatening  attitude 
of  the  Bulgarians  distressed  the  population  and  caused  the  consuls  great  anxiety. 
They  telegraphed  to  Sofia,  where  energetic  representations  were  made  by  the  legations. 

Consular  Intervention 

According  to  instructions  received,  Mr.  Machkov,  the  Russian  consul,  and  Mr. 
Cuinet,  the  French  consul,  presented  themselves  before  Mr.  Veltchev  on  the  following 
day,  and  warned  him,  in  the  names  of  their  respective  governments,  that  the  Bul- 
garian troops  must  not  touch  the  Greek  or  Turkish  inhabitants. 

"With  what  right  do  you  interfere  in  our  discords?"  Veltchev  rudely  replied, 
losing  his  small  measure  of  self-control.  "Are  the  Greeks  and  Turks  subject  to 
your  jurisdiction?" 

"No,"  replied  Mr.  Cuinet,  "they  are  not  subject  to  our  jurisdiction;  they  are  still 
Turkish  subjects."  Mr.  Machkov  remarked  coldly  that  in  making  his  communication 
he  was  acting  under  orders  from  his  government;  any  further  discussion  seemed  to 
him  useless. 

The  consuls  at  once  departed,  leaving  the  high  and  mighty  Bulgarian  commander 
in  a  state  of  complete  consternation.  The  consuls  do  not  admit  that  the  conversation 
was  exactly  as  I  have  reported;  but  I  have  good  authority  for  what  I  say. 

That  the  Russian  consulate,  which  is  at  this  time  markedly  Bulgarophil  and  whose 
very  raison  d'etre  lay  in  its  protection  of  the  Christians  and  particularly  of  the  Bul- 
garians, should  have  been  treated  by  the  Bulgarian  authorities  with  such  unconcealed 
and  arrogant  hostility,  is  a  fact  which  I  could  not  pass  by  in  silence.  The  Bulgarian 
military  authorities  in  their  public  utterances  treated  Russia  with  contempt,  saying 
that  Bulgaria  owed  Russia  no  gratitude  because  her  object  in  freeing  it  had  not  been 
the  liberation  of  the  Bulgarian  peoples,  but  the  creation  of  new  Russian  provinces, 
which  Europe  would  not  allow.  On  every  occasion,  whether  propitious  or  no,  the 
Bulgarians  declared  that  they  would  absolutely  ignore  our  consulate. 

The  Russian  consulate  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  saving  from  Bulgarian  ex- 
cesses the  families  of  the  old  Mussulman  cavasses  (armed  porters)  who  had  de- 
votedly served  the  Bulgarian  cause  for  nearly  thirty  years.  The  grateful  recognition 
of  the  people  towards  the  Russian  consulate  grew  in  proportion  to  the  inflexible 
hostility  of  the  Bulgarians  to  it;  they  knew  that  they  owed  the  salvation  of  their 
lives  and  property  to  Russian  intervention.  The  Moslems  recall  with  pathetic  grati- 
tude that  during  the  Russian  occupations  their  religious  feelings  were  respected,  the 
soldiers  called  the  old  Turkish  women  "mother,"  and  the  young  girls  "sister,"  and 
shared  their  food  with  the  poor.  Even  the  Servian  soldiery  left  pleasant  memories 
behind  them.  While  the  Bulgarians  broke  down  the  doors  to  enter  the  houses,  rudely 
demanded  the  best  rooms  and  good  food  such  as  the  owner  was  often  in  no  position 
to  give;  ill-treated  men  and  women  and  carried  off  carpets,  clothing  and  furniture,  the 
Servian  officers  politely  asked  leave  to  spend  the  night  in  some  corner,  made  no  noise, 
gave  thanks  and  a  tip  to  the  servant  when  they  went  away,  and  begged  their  hosts 
to  visit  them  should  they  ever  pass  through  Servia.  Truly  a  striking  contrast. 

The  Return  of  the  Turks 

What  precedes  explains  why  the  Turkish  troops  were  received  with  open  arms 
by  the  whole  population  on  their  return  to  Adrianople.  People  remembered  that 
during  the  siege,  Choukri  Pasha,  the  commander  in  Adrianople,  and  Ismail  Pasha, 
governor  of  the  fortress,  displayed  a  fatherly  solicitude  for  all  without  distinction. 
The  Turks  fully  justified  the  enthusiasm  of  their  reception  by  their  extraordinary 
moderation.  From  the  time  of  their  arrival  perfect  order  reigned  in  the  city;  there 
was  not  a  single  case  of  aggression.  Some  excesses  were  committed  by. the  Kurdish 
irregular  cavalry  in  a  village  in  the  environs,  but  all  those  concerned  were  arrested, 
court-martialed  and  shot. 


330  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

At  Mustapha  Pasha  some  soldiers  who  tried  to  set  fire  to  a  house  were  killed 
on  the  spot  by  an  officer.  Contrary  to  Bulgarian  precedent  the  Turkish  authorities 
declared  that  they  would  tolerate  no  disorder.  In  view  of  what  has  been  said  it 
need  cause  no  astonishment  to  find  the  Turkish,  Greek  and  Jewish  population  ready 
to  depart  if  they  heard  that  Europe  insisted  on  the  cession  of  Adrianople  to  the 
Bulgars.  The  Greek  Metropolitan  and  the  mufti  appeal  through  me  to  Russian  public 
opinion  to  secure  that  should  the  Bulgarians  return,  a  month  of  delay  may  be  accorded 
in  which  the  inhabitants  of  Thrace  may  peaceably  effect  their  expatriation. 

Such  without  more  words,  is  the  terrible  result  of  my  eight  days'  inquiry. 


APPENDIX  F 


Documents  Relating  to  Chapter  III 

THE  DEFENSE 

REPORT  ADDRESSED  TO  THE  COMMANDER  OF  THE  KEHLIBAROV  RESERVE  ON  THE  CHARGES  MADE 

BY  THE  LONDON  DAILY  TELEGRAPH 

To  the  Commander  Kehlibarov  Reserve, 

Military  Magistrate  at  Adrianople. 
Sir, 

The  staff  office  of  the  army  sends  you  herewith  a  copy  of  an  article  which  appeared 
in  an  English  newspaper,  the  Daily  Telegraph,  and  requests  you  to  prepare  a  documentary 
report  on  the  matter  in  order  to  make  the  truth  public. 

For  the  Chief  of  Staff, 

(Signed)     Staff-Colonel    Nerezov, 
Chief  of  the  Intelligence  Department. 
(S)     Commanding-Staff-Officer  Topladjicov. 

To  the  Chief  of  Staff  of  the  Army   (in  the  City); 

In  obedience  to  the  above  order,  I  submit  the  following  report  upon  the  questions 
at  issue. 

I.  I  entered  Adrianople  with  the  first  detachments  of  the  infantry,  the  twenty-third  and 
the  fifty-third,  on  the  day  that  the  fortress  was  captured,  and  I  was  immediately  nominated 
military   magistrate.     I   held   this   position   until   the    recapture  of   the   city   by  the  Turks. 
I  was  therefore  enabled  to  judge  of  the  situation,  and  to  know  of  nearly  all  the  important 
events  that  occurred  in  the  city  and  the  environs,  as  well  as  the  affairs  that  came  under  my 
personal  and  official  notice. 

II.  The  Turkish  prisoners  were  taken  to  the  island  of  Sarai  because  there  were  no 
barracks,  some  having  been  burned  by  the  Turks,  and  others  being  infected  with  cholera. 
The  Turkish  officers  were  quartered  in  the  one  or  two  available  ones  that  remained. 

During  the  first  two  days  the  proper  quantity  of  bread  could  not  be  given  to  the 
prisoners  because  even  our  own  soldiers  were  on  short  rations.  In  spite  of  this  a  quarter 
of  the  portion  of  bread  served  to  each  Bulgarian  soldier  was  deducted  and  distributed  to 
the  Turkish  prisoners.  Two  days  later  a  sufficient  quantity  of  bread  arrived,  and  there- 
after equal  portions  were  served  to  our  soldiers  and  to  the  prisoners.  The  latter  were 
never  subjected  to  any  cruelty. 

III.  It  is  true  that  a  certain  number  of  Turkish  and  Jewish  houses  were  pillaged, 
but  not  by  our  soldiers.    The  local  Greek  population  alone   are  to  be  blamed   for  these 
crimes.    I  was  able  to  see  this  and  to  verify  it  personally  many  times  from  the  moment  of 
my  arrival   in   the  city.    Later  on,   when   order  was   reestablished   in   the   city,   numerous 
complaints  of  offences  committed  by  the  Greeks,  such  as  the  looting  of  houses,  incendiarism, 
pillage  and  so  on,  were  addressed  to  me  in  my  official  capacity  by  the  Turkish  population. 


332  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

I  took  out  more  than  twenty  actions  on  such  complaints.  These  facts  may  be  verified 
by  examining  the  papers  in  the  office  of  the  public  prosecutor  or  those  on  my  own  shelves. 

There  is  also  the  sacking  of  the  mosques.  For  this^the  Greeks,  who  had  a  frenzy  for 
looting,  must  again  be  blamed.  It  was  the  Greeks  who  murdered  thirteen  Turks  in  one 
of  tfie  mosques  of  the  city.  A  number  of  Greeks  attempted  to  pillage  the  aforesaid  mosque 
and  the  neighboring  Turkish  house.  The  Turks  wished  to  prevent  them,  and  seeing  that 
they  were  threatened  fired  upon  the  assailants,  killing  one  Greek  and  wounding  others. 
The  rest  of  the  Greeks  took  flight  and  informed  a  patrol  that  the  Turks  were  barricaded 
within  the  mosque;  that  they  were  firing  upon  the  passers-by;  and  that  they  intended  to 
blow  up  the  whole  quarter  with  dynamite.  The  Bulgarian  soldiers  urged  the  Turks  to  open 
the  door  and  to  give  themselves  up,  and  upon  their  refusal,  fired  upon  them.  Several 
Turks  fell  and  several  soldiers  were  wounded.  But  the  Greeks,  greedy  for  plunder,  were 
the  sole  cause  of  the  incident.  Thanks  to  their  falsehoods,  they  caused  the  death  of  one 
of  tfceir  own  number. 

The  carpets  and  the  books  of  the  mosque  of  the  Sultan  Selim  were  never  scattered. 
They  were  guarded  by  a  sentinel  and  everything  was  replaced  as  it  had  been  originally. 

IV.  In  regard  to  the  Turkish  officer  who  was  killed,  the  truth  has  been  equally  dis- 
torted. This  officer  was  neither  wounded  nor  sick  nor  escorted  by  a  soldier.  He  was 
hiding  in  a  house  and  was  discovered,  and  when  he  was  being  taken  to  the  guard  house 
he  tried  to  escape  and  hide  in  the  crowd.  He  was  captured  by  another  soldier,  upon 
whom  he  drew  his  revolver,  but  had  not  time  to  shoot  before  he  was  himself  shot  by  his 
captor  and  fell  dead.  No  Jew  interceded  for  him.  The  officer  had  resisted  with  force. 
The  proof  is  the  revolver  drawn  from  his  pocket. 

As  to  the  pillage  of  the  jeweler's  shop,  it  is  an  invention  pure  and  simple.  There  is 
no  such  shop  in  Adrianople.  All  the  shops  which  sell  more  or  less  precious  articles  are 
in  the  Marche  d'Ali-Pacha,  which  was  guarded  by  sentinels  from  the  moment  the  city 
was  captured.  Nor  is  it  true  that  other  shops  were  pillaged  by  our  soldiers.  The  truth 
is,  that  the  Greek  population,  knowing  of  the  rich  Turkish  houses,  misled  our  patrols  by 
telling  them  that  suspect  persons  were  hiding  in  such  and  such  houses,  where  they  also 
were  concealing  fire  arms,  and  when  our  soldiers  went  to  investigate,  the  Greeks  thrust 
themselves  in  too,  and  either  looted  whatever  they  could  lay  their  hands  upon  then  and 
there,  or  else  waited  till  the  soldiers  had  gone  and  then  stole  at  their  leisure.  The  Turks 
themselves  will,  if  need  be,  confirm  all  that  I  assert.  As  to  the  commander  of  the  garrison, 
I  must  admit  that  he  was  most  attentive  to  everybody  and  particularly,  even  a  little  too- 
much  so,  to  the  Turks.  None  of  the  assertions  made  by  the  newspaper  are  true.  I  never 
left  the  garrison,  and  I  was  aware  of  everything  that  happened. 

The  account  of  the  incident  with  the  Greek  Metropolitan  of  Adrianople  is  a  shameful 
lie.  It  was  not  the  commander  of  the  garrison  who  was  arrogant  and  insolent,  but^the 
bishop  himself.  I  was  in  the  office  of  the  aide  de  camp  when  the  Greek  bishop  came  to 
make  the  application  for  the  See  of  Kavala.  He  entered  and  without  waiting  to  be  asked, 
seated  himself  in  an  easy  chair.  He  crossed  his  legs,  and  without  making  known  the 
object  of  his  visit  began  to  smoke.  He  would  only  speak  on  general  topics,  where  he 
went  every  day  and  how  polite  and  amiable  all  the  people  were  to  him.  He  was  none  the 
less  the  leading  spirit  of  the  association  that  had  for  its  object  the  buying  of  arms  and  the 
inciting  of  the  Greek  population  to  rebellion.  But  let  the  facts  speak:  First,  arms  were 
found  hidden  in  a  Greek  church.  The  vicar  of  the  church  declared  that  rifles  were  being 
procured  with  which  to  arm  the  local  Greek  population,  and  that  the  bishop  knew  of  it. 
Second,  a  manifesto  coming  from  the  above  named  association,  an  incitement  of  the  Greek 
population  to  rebellion  against  the  Bulgarian  authorities  was  signed.  Third,  the  Greek 
head  schoolmaster,  Gilo,  was  arrested,  in  the  midst  of  inciting  the  Greeks  and  above  all 


APPENDICES  333 

the  Turkish  prisoners  at  Bosnakony,  to  rise  against  the  Bulgarians,  assuring  them  that 
they  had  a  sufficient  number  of  rifles  and  even  guns.  Fourth,  the  same  Gilo,  the  Metro- 
politan, and  Dr.  Courtidis,  formed  a  committee  of  which  we  know  all  the  members,  the 
place  of  meeting  and  the  decisions  taken.  No  steps  were  taken  by  us  in  this  matter,  first, 
because  the  commander  of  the  garrison  and  the  deputy  of  the  governor  opposed  it,  and 
second,  because  it  was  on  the  eve  of  the  recapture  of  Adrianople  by  the  Turks,  and  there 
was  not  sufficient  time. 

This  committee  organized  a  plot  against  the  commander  of  the  garrison,  and  the  authors 
of  the  attempt  were  arrested  with  revolvers  in  their  hands.  I  took  a  public  action  on  this 
account.  For  details  of  this,  also,  public  documents  may  be  consulted. 

All  of  these  facts,  and  many  others  of  which  the  Daily  Telegraph  does  not  speak, 
may  be  corroborated  by  public  documents,  and  by  various  other  proofs. 

I  hand  in  my  report  a  little  late,  because  I  only  received  the  order  on  October  23,  in 
the  evening. 

TOPALDJICOV. 

Former  Military  Magistrate  at  Lozengrad  and  at  Adrianople. 
(S)     Commandant    of    Kehlibarov    Reserve. 

Sofia,  October  25/November  7,  1913. 


Order  No.  3  to  the  garrison  at  Adrianople. 
Adrianople,  March  15,  1913. 

That  one  quarter  of  the  rations  of  bread  allotted  to  each  soldier  of  the  companies 
within  the  garrison  and  of  the  eastern  section,  be  deducted,  today  and  on  March  16  and  17, 
and  sent  each  day  at  ten  a.m.  to  the  office  of  the  commandant  in  the  north  of  the  city, 
between  the  bridge  of  Toundja  and  the  military  depots,  and  allotted  to  the  prisoners. 

Chief  of  Garrison:  Gen.  Major  Vasov. 
Chief  of  Staff:  Major  of  States  General  Volkov. 

General  Vasov  explained  to  the  Commission  that  this  order  was  given  to  the  Com- 
mandant on  the  14th,  and  was  obeyed  at  once,  although  being  an  oral  command  it  had  to  be 
authenticated  in  writing.  From  the  17th,  the  General  added,  each  prisoner  was  given  a 
whole  loaf  of  bread. 

THE  MILETITS   PAPERS 

1.  On  the  Treatment  of  the  Turkish  Prisoners  During  the  First  Months  Subsequent  to  the 
Taking  of  the  Town  of  Adrianople 

The  whole  of  what  has  been  said  up  to  now,  by  persons  whose  impartiality  is  more 
than  dubious,  about  the  bad  treatment  to  which  the  Turkish  prisoners  were  subjected  after 
the  taking  of  Adrianople,  is  a  tissue  of  revolting  calumnies.  The  documents  appended 
afford  proof  of  the  care  taken  by  the  military  authorities  for  the  maintenance  of  the  pris- 
oners both  in  the  way  of  food  and  sanitary  provision,  and  this  despite  the  deplorable  con- 
ditions, both  as  regards  administration  and  sanitation,  in  which  our  troops  found  them- 
selves on  their  entry  into  Adrianople,  thanks  to  the  fact  that  the  Turkish  authorities  had 
destroyed  all  means  of  subsistence  and  primary  necessaries  in  the  town.  As  Appendix  I 
shows,  the  vanguard  of  the  garrison  in  Adrianople  immediately  on  the  entry  into  the  town 
gave  orders  that  a  quarter  of  the  bread  rations  of  every  Bulgarian  trooper  should  be 
deducted  for  the  benefit  of  the  prisoners.  It  is  true  that  the  prisoners  suffered  from  hunger 
during  the  two  days  immediately  following  the  fall  of  the  town.  But  the  Bulgarian 


334  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

soldiery  were  in  the  same  case,  most  of  them  having  got  rid  of  their  bread  at  the  moment 
of  the  final  assault.  Those  who  had  kept  it  shared  it  fraternally  on  their  entry  with 
the  famishing  population.  Everybody  was,  in  fact,  in  the  same  position,  a  position  which 
could  not  immediately  be  remedied  because  they,  the  Turks,  had  destroyed  the  railway 
bridge  over  the  Arda,  which  made  the  work  of  the  commissariat  infinitely  more  difficult. 

The  behavior  of  our  soldiers  to  their  Turkish  fellows  was  beyond  reproach.  The  very 
fact  of  victory  filled  the  Bulgarian  soldiery  with  generosity  towards  the  adversary  of 
overnight.  From  the  day  of  the  capture  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  mingled  with  the  prisoners, 
fraternized  with  them  and  held  friendly  converse. 

To  avoid  the  spread  of  cholera  and  other  epidemics,  it  was  decided  to  bivouac  the 
Bulgarian  troops  as  well  as  the  prisoners  outside  of  the  town.  A  sufficient  number  of  tents 
could  not  be  furnished  either  for  the  prisoners  or  the  troops.  Nevertheless,  twelve  sanitary 
tents  were  put  up  in  the  island  of  Sarai,  and  reserved  strictly  for  the  prisoners.  All  the 
captive  Turkish  doctors  were  retained  exclusively  for  attendance  on  the  prisoners.  More- 
over, the  necessary  precautions  were  taken  for  disinfection,  to  prevent  the  spread  of  the 
disease  which  carried  off  numerous  victims  every  day  among  the  prisoners,  who  were 
already  enfeebled  by  the  privations  they  had  endured  during  the  siege.  An  edict  of  March 
29,  issued  by  the  head  of  the  garrison,  enumerated  measures  to  be  taken  to  prevent  the 
spread  of  cholera  among  the  prisoners,  who  were  thereby  ordered  to  receive  a  daily  ration 
of  1  loaf,  100  grammes  of  rice  and  200  grammes  of  meat,  the  same  as  that  of  the  Bulgarian 
soldiers. 

2.    Housebreaking,  Robbery  and  Pillage,  Attributed  to  the  Bulgarian  Soldiery  in  the  Town 

of  Adrianople 

It  is  a  fact  that  a  number  of  thefts  by  way  of  housebreaking  and  pillage  did  take 
place  in  the  days  immediately  preceding  and  following  the  capture  of  the  town,  but  all  of 
these,  almost  without  exception,  are  attributable  to  the  Jewish  and  above  all,  to  the  Greek 
population.  They  set  to  work  from  the  night  of  March  12,  when  it  was  obvious  to  everyone 
that  the  fall  of  the  town  was  imminent.  Pillage  on  the  part  of  Greeks  and  Jews  went  on 
all  over  the  town,  even  while  our  troops  were  effecting  entry  and  they  had  to  intervene 
to  drive  off  the  marauders  with  blows  of  the  whip  and  flat  of  their  swords.  The  Turks 
who  had  had  to  look  on  despairingly  while  their  goods  were  pillaged  hailed  the  assistance 
of  the  Bulgarian  soldiers.  The  pillagers  did  not  only  plunder  private  houses ;  they  sacked 
public  buildings  as  well.  Cherif-bey,  director  of  public  property,  describes  how  the  Greeks 
broke  the  doors  of  his  house  and  carried  off  the  furniture.  The  government  offices,  he 
says,  were  treated  in  the  same  way;  part  of  their  furniture  being  discovered  later  in  the 
warehouses  of  the  following  business  firms: — Moses  Levi  Patchavradji,  the  German  bank, 
the  Bank  of  Salonica,  Avram  Baruch,  Toledo,  Toledo-Rodrigue,  Gustav  Tschinare,  Moses 
Ovaliche,  and  others.  The  firms  in  question  stated  that  all  the  objects  thus  found  had  been 
purchased  by  them  from  Greeks  and  from  some  Armenians.  A  quantity  of  stolen  goods 
were  bought  from  a  certain  Djavid  Ousta,  son  of  one  of  the  Russian  consul's  domestics,  by 
the  firm  of  Salomon  Menahem.  The  whole  of  the  furniture  of  the  Turkish  military  club 
and  the  goods  of  several  Turkish  notables  were  afterwards  discovered  in  the  hands  of 
Greeks  in  the  vicinity.  During  the  earliest  days  of  the  occupation  hundreds  of  complaints 
were  lodged  by  Turks,  who  knew  the  Greeks  by  whom  they  had  been  pillaged.  Many 
dared  not  give  names  for  fear  of  reprisals.  The  Bulgarian  troops  touched  nothing  in  the 
mosques.  The  library  of  the  Sultan  Selim  mosque  was  found  to  have  been  ransacked. 
This  again  was  the  work  of  the  population,  which  knew  its  value  and  the  desirable  speci- 
mens existing  there.  There  was  a  persistent  rumor  current  to  the  effect  that  the  "Selimie" 


APPENDICES 


335 


Koran,  an  object  of  great  price,  both  on  account  of  its  antiquity  and  the  richness  of  its 
gold  binding,  was  in  the  possession  of  the  Russian  consul. 

However  that  may  be,  order  was  restored  with  praiseworthy  celerity  on  the  entry  of 
the  Bulgarian  troops,  despite  the  fighting  that  was  still  going  on  in  the  southern  and  north- 
western sections.  A  series  of  Orders  was  issued  from  time  to  time,  which  aimed  at  estab- 
lishing the  fullest  measure  of  public  security  and  ameliorating  the  prisoners'  lot.  An  order 
from  headquarters  permitted  nearly  half  the  prisoners  at  Adrianople  to  return  to  their 
homes  as  new  citizens  of  the  Bulgarian  crown,  without  distinction  of  nationality. 

An  order  of  March  17,  o.  s.,  No.  6,  issued  by  the  head  of  the  garrison  for  the 
amelioration  of  the  lot  of  the  remaining  prisoners,  ordered  that  3,000  prisoners  should  be 
dispatched  to  the  interior  daily.  Another  order  of  March  21,  o.  s.,  enjoined  the  officer 
in  charge  of  the  prisoners  to  distribute  a  certain  number  of  them  in  the  villages  imme- 
diately adjacent  to  Adrianople,  Bosna-Keui,  Anir-Keui,  Emirli  and  Tatar-Keui.  Other 
orders  issued  from  headquarters  on  March  17,  o.  s.,  No.  65,  and  on  March  20,  No.  121, 
and  that  issued  by  the  head  of  the  Adrianople  garrison  on  March  29,  o.  s.,  show  the  con- 
sideration devoted  to  the  case  of  the  Turkish  prisoners. 

At  the  entry  of  the  Bulgarian  troops  there  were  in  Adrianople,  over  and  above  the 
prisoners,  more  than  25,000  Turkish  peasants  who  had  taken  refuge  there  before  the 
investment  began.  Throughout  the  whole  period  they  were  provided  with  food.  A  special 
commission  was  set  up  under  the  presidency  of  a  superior  officer  and  composed  of  two 
officials,  an  officer  and  two  Turkish  notables,  one  being  the  mufti  of  Adrianople,  to  restore 
the  Turkish  refugees  to  their  villages,  reestablish  them  in  their  houses,  and  supply  the 
most  necessitous  with  means  to  start  work  again  on  their  fields.  Since  the  Greeks  used 
to  attack  Turkish  refugees  on  their  return  to  their  homes  in  order  to  plunder  them  and 
theirs,  guards  of  three  or  four  soldiers  were  posted  in  every  village  to  protect  the  Turks 
against  Greek  aggression.  These  steps  were  carried  out  and  the  mufti  more  than  once 
expressed  to  our  authorities  the  gratitude  for  their  care  felt  by  the  Mussulman  population. 
And  yet,  when  the  Turkish  troops  crossed  the  frontier  and  advanced  on  Adrianople  and 
Mustapha  Pasha,  the  first  act  of  Turks  and  Greeks  was  to  massacre  most  of  the  guards  set 
for  their  protection  who  had  not  succeeded  in  beating  a  retreat.  Most  of  the  Turkish 
officials  found  in  Adrianople  at  the  taking  of  the  town  were  removed  with  their  families 
and  those  of  the  officers  by  land  and  sea  to  Constantinople.  As  they  got  on  board  they 
thanked  the  representatives  of  the  Bulgarian  authorities,  with  tears  in  their  eyes,  for  the 
attentions  they  had  received.  These  people  are  living  and  could,  if  needed,  confirm  what 
has  been  said  above. 

3.  Alleged  Excesses  Committed  by  the  Bulgarian  Troops  at  the  Evacuation  of  Adrianople 

The  allegations  made  by  certain  interested  persons  as  to  the  cruelty  exercised  towards 
prisoners  and  population  by  the  Bulgarian  troops  on  evacuating  Adrianople  are  so  many 
revolting  inventions.  When  the  Turkish  army  from  Tchataldja  and  Boulair  advanced 
towards  Adrianople,  the  prisoners  were  divided  into  bodies  of  1,000-2,000  strong,  and  dis- 
patched to  the  interior  of  Bulgaria,  each  body  being  under  the  convoy  of  twenty  or  thirty 
veterans  of  the  territorial  army.  To  say  that  the  prisoners  were  ill-treated,  or  still  worse, 
massacred  en  masse  on  the  way,  is  absolutely  false.  The  very  size  of  the  escort  would 
make  such  a  statement  hardly  admissible. 

4.  Alleged  Execution  of  Forty-live  Greeks  Who  Are  Said  to  Have  Carried  off  Sacks  of 

Flour  from  the  Depot  Because  They  Were  "Dying  of  Starvation" 

The  truth  about  this  incident,  which  has  been  grossly  exaggerated  by  unscrupulous 
persons,  is  as  follows : 


336  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

On  July  7,  o.  s.,  when  it  appeared  that  the  Turkish  troops  must  be  near  at  hand,  the 
Greeks  of  Karagatch,  aided  by  those  of  the  village  of  Bosna-Keui,  armed  themselves  and 
took  to  pillage,  thereby  causing  a  fearful  panic  among  the  population.  They  butchered 
five  soldiers  belonging  to  the  Territorials  and  some  twenty  Turkish  prisoners  working 
at  the  station.  These  men,  who  are  described  as  "dying  of  starvation,"  profiting  by  the 
panic  they  had  aroused,  next  threw  themselves  on  the  provision  and  clothes  depots  and 
regularly  pillaged  them.  The  sentinels  on  guard  at  the  depots  did  no  more  than  their 
duty  in  firing  here  and  there  on  the  insatiable  robbers. 

As  to  the  corpses  of  these  same  Greeks,  said  to  have  been  drawn  up  from  the  Maritza, 
the  truth  is  as  follows :  The  prison  in  Adrianople  was  filled  with  more  than  262  criminals, 
most  of  whom  were  Greeks,  100  having  been  incarcerated  for  acts  of  murder  against 
Turks  and  some  fifty  for  robbery,  incendiarism  and  outrages.  On  the  night  of  July  7-8, 
o.  s.,  the  prisoners  confined  in  one  of  the  cells  in  an  upper  story,  facing  east  upon  the 
main  street,  succeeded  in  sawing  through  the  bars  of  one  of  the  windows,  whence  thirty- 
two  made  their  escape  by  means  of  a  belt.  But  when  they  reached  the  Yanak-Kichla 
bridge  and  found  it  guarded,  the  prisoners,  to  the  number  of  twelve,  seeing  themselves 
threatened  by  a  patrol  coming  up  from  behind,  threw  themselves  into  the  Toundja  in  the 
hopes  of  swimming  across.  The  soldiers  opened  fire  on  the  fugitives  and  succeeded  in 
killing  them.  These  are  the  bodies  seen  in  the  Toundja. 

5.    Alleged  Ill-Treatment  Endured  by  the  Greek  Bishop  of  Adrianople  at  the  Hands  of  the 

Head  of  the  Garrison 

According  to  information  prior  to  the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  a  committee  really  existed 
in  Adrianople,  in  the  time  of  the  Turks,  whose  object  was  to  use  every  available  means  to 
secure  the  closing  of  Bulgarian  schools  and  churches  in  Thrace  and  to  Hellenize  the  inhab- 
itants. The  Greek  bishop  of  Adrianople,  the  chairman  of  this  committee,  was  in  constant 
touch  with  the  Greek  patriarchate  and  the  Athenian  government,  which  supplied  him  with 
the  necessary  resources  for  pursuing  the  end  in  view.  The  committee's  activity  continued 
after  Thrace  had  been  conquered  by  our  troops.  It  began  to  agitate  for  the  autonomy  of 
Thrace  and  the  expulsion  of  the  Bulgarians.  Arms  were  distributed  to  the  Greek  popula- 
tion through  its  instrumentality  and  attacks  made  on  the  representatives  of  constituted 
authority.  An  emissary  of  the  Athenian  government,  George  Pouridi,  was  at  this  time 
at  Adrianople,  where  he  cooperated  with  the  bishop  to  stir  the  committee  to  activity.  On 
May  21,  o.  s.,  when  General  Savov  happened  to  be  in  the  Greek  bishopric  making  a  speech 
on  the  birthday  of  King  George,  Pouridi  succeeded  in  getting  out  of  prison  and  making 
his  way  to  the  bishopric  and  the  room  where  Savov  was  with  the  intention  of  assassinating 
him.  He  was  arrested  by  the  chief  of  the  guard  and  sent  back  to  prison.  Three  attempts, 
of  the  same  kind,  on  the  life  of  the  head  of  the  garrison  were  made  by  Greeks,  who  were 
in  each  case  arrested  in  the  act  of  putting  their  design  into  execution.  In  spite  of  repeated 
demands,  the  Greeks  never  willingly  handed  over  the  arms  in  their  possession.  In  the 
course  of  domiciliary  visitations  to  houses  and  churches,  considerable  quantities  of  arms 
were  discovered,  abandoned  by  the  Turks  and  gathered  up  by  the  Greeks.  At  times  of 
most  serious  crisis,  the  telegraphic  lines  between  Adrianople  and  the  front  were  cut.  The 
culprits — again  Greeks — were  arrested  and  delivered  over  to  justice. 

It  was  in  view  of  facts  like  this  that  the  head  of  the  garrison  at  Adrianople  was 
ordered  to  entreat  the  Greek  bishop  of  the  town  to  use  his  influence  with  his  flock  to 
induce  them  to  behave  as  citizens  and  respect  the  established  order,  failing  which  the 
bishop  himself  should  be  held  responsible  for  any  infringement  of  public  order  which 
might  be  imputed  to  the  Greek  community.  The  order  was  carried  out  simply  and  fully 
as  it  was  given.  The  whole  story  of  a  violent  scene  between  the  bishop  and  the  com- 


APPENDICES  337 

mandant  is  a  piece  of  pure   fantasy,  as  is  that  of  the  assassination  of  a  Turkish  officer 
and  an  Israelite  by  a  soldier  in  the  main  street. 

Finally  what  has  been  said  above  of  the  orders  issued  by  the  chief  of  the  garrison 
of  Adrianople  alone  gives  some  idea  of  the  pains  taken  to  insure  order  and  security  in. 
the  town  and  its  environs.  On  the  other  hand,  the  papers  of  the  examining  magistrates- 
and  military  procurators  permit  one  to  state  that  an  inquiry  was  opened  on  every  crime 
committed;  in  every  case  the  guilty  persons  were  arrested  and  condemned,  irrespective- 
of  nationality,  by  regularly  constituted  tribunals,  whose  sentences  were  strictly  in  accord- 
ance with  established  law.  The  result  of  all  this  could  but  be  excellent.  Exemplary  order 
was  established  without  delay,  and  all  the  citizens  without  distinction  of  nationality 
enjoyed  full  liberty.  Confirmation  of  this  fact  is  afforded  by  a  number  of  foreigners  of 
distinction  who  came  to  Adrianople,  among  them  an  Englishman,  Brigadier  General  R.  G. 
Broadwood,  who  visited  the  town  shortly  after  it  was  taken,  and  whose  statements 
are  not  open  to  doubt.  The  recognition  by  impartial  persons  of  a  state  of  affairs  so« 
praiseworthy  could  not  but  excite  the  animosity  of  our  adversaries  who  left  no  stone 
unturned  in  the  endeavor  to  deceive  public  opinion,  and  traduce  the  name  of  Bulgaria. 
It  may  moreover  not  be  superfluous  to  remark  that  the  secretaries  of  most  of  the  foreign 
consulates  at  Adrianople,  including  the  Russian,  are  Greeks,  who  had  always  been  used1 
by  the  Greek  bishop  to  prejudice  the  Bulgarian  cause  in  the  eyes  of  their  respective  gov- 
ernments, and  defend  the  criminal  activities  of  their  Greek  compatriots.  This  fact  casts  a 
curious  light  upon  reports  issued  by  the  secretaries  of  certain  foreign  consulates  at 
Adrianople,  who  carefully  refrained  from  avowing  their  real  nationality,  hidden  beneath 
the  cloak  of  their  representation  of  foreign  Powers. 


APPENDIX  G 


Documents  Relating  to  Chapter  III 

DEPOSITIONS 
1.  LETTER   OF   BARONESS   VARVARA   YXCOULL   TO   MR.    MAXIME   KOVALEVSKY 

Salsomaggiore,  August  29,  1913. 
My  dear  friend : 

I  have  spoken  so  much  to  you  of  Bulgaria,  and  you  have  always  shown  such  interest 
in  the  topic,  that  I  do  not  hesitate  to  write  to  you  where  truth  makes  my  doing  so  an 
actual  obligation,  a  propos  of  an  article  which  appeared  in  a  recent  issue  of  the  Daily 
Telegraph,  emanating  ostensibly  from  a  Russian  diplomatist,  commissioned  by  his  govern- 
ment to  make  an  inquiry  into  the  "Bulgarian  atrocities"  at  Adrianople.  I  say  "ostensibly," 
for  fortunately  the  position  of  the  person  responsible  for  the  "information"  which  was 
collected  in  two  days,  has  been  officially  repudiated.  The  story  is  the  work  of  a  news- 
paper correspondent  (his  name  is  not  given)  who,  propio  motu,  undertook  an  "inquiry,"  if 
such  a  word  can  be  used,  to  describe  highly  difficult  investigations  requiring  far  more 
time,  if  they  were  to  be  serious  or  more  or  less  truthful.  I  say  more  or  less  truthful,  for 
it  seems  to  me  that,  post  factum,  considering  the  state  of  mind  of  the  ex-belligerents,  the 
national  characteristics  and  mutual  passions,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  arrive  at  the  whole 
truth.  Certainly  I  make  no  claim  to  do  so;  but  I  should  like  to  prove  from  facts  that 
happened  under  my  eyes  that  the  best  intentions — and  no  doubt  the  correspondent  was 
animated  by  such, — often  arrive  at  results  far  enough  removed  from  reality.  He  states 
among  other  things,  that  the  town  of  Adrianople  was  sacked,  pillaged  and  half  destroyed 
by  the  Bulgarians  when  they  entered  it.  I  went  to  Adrianople  on  the  third  day  of  the 
Bulgarian  occupation,  and  my  first  impression  on  getting  well  into  the  town  was  one  of 
profound  astonishment  at  the  order  reigning,  despite  the  fact  that  the  police  force  at  that 
time  mustered  but  thirty  men ;  at  the  sight  of  streets  literally  overflowing  with  troops 
going  hither  and  thither,  obviously  rejoicing  in  that  victory  but  without  anything  that 
could  give  or  was  meant  to  give  offense  to  the  vanquished. 

There  was  a  great  crowd  by  the  Sultan  Selim  mosque,  trying  to  effect  an  entrance, 
but  the  doors  were  closed  and  the  sentinels  refused  all  admittance.  When  they  saw  me 
in  the  dress  of  a  sister  of  charity  and  accompanied  by  a  slightly  wounded  Bulgarian 
officer,  they  let  us  in  by  one  of  the  little  side  doors  where  there  was  no  press.  When  I 
asked  why  the  public  was  not  admitted  without  special  permit,  the  sentry  replied  that 
some  damage  had  been  done  by  the  soldiery  on  the  first  day,  whereupon  measures  had 
been  immediately  taken.  I  looked  about  me  anxiously,  fearing  for  what  I  might  see 
and  expected  to  notice  signs  of  irreparable  damage,  but,  with  the  exception  of  a  hole 
in  the  roof  made  by  a  shell  during  the  siege,  in  the  angle  of  one  of  the  small  staircases, 
I  saw  nothing  but  perfect  order;  the  sumptuous  carpet,  of  incalculable  value,  had  been 
carefully  rolled  up,  the  flags  covered  with  matting,  the  wrought  iron  chandeliers  which 
adorn  the  interior  of  the  mosque  all  in  good  condition,  with  the  exception  of  a  dozen  which 


APPENDICES  339 

may  have  been  long  wanting,  everywhere  irreproachable  cleanliness.  Assuredly  the  Sultan 
Selim  mosque  did  not  at  that  time  present  the  appearance  of  a  building  which  had  been 
"sacked  and  soiled." 

Thence  I  went  to  a  consulate,  where  I  was  given  a  thrilling  account  of  the  ravages 
committed  in  the  mosque  of  which  sinister  details  had  been  reported.  Great  was  the  sur- 
prise of  the  people  there  when  I  described  what  I  had  just  seen.  If  such  stories  were 
possible  at  that  moment,  in  the  town  itself,  what  legends  might  grow  up  in  the  course 
of  months ! 

The  Daily  Telegraph's  correspondent  is  equally  remote  from  reality  in  his  description 
of  the  murder  of  a  Greek  by  the  Bulgarian  troops.  The  incident  took  place  while  I  was 
in  Adrianople :  I  saw  the  dead  body,  which  was  left  covered  up  but  exposed  to  the  public 
on  the  spot  where  it  fell.  The  Greek,  an  Ottoman  subject,  discovered  a  certain  number 
of  Turkish  soldiers  hidden  in  a  little  mosque;  he  pointed  out  their  hiding  place  with  his 
finger  to  the  Bulgarian  officer  passing  by  with  his  half  company.  The  Turks  evidently 
saw  the  gesture,  for  a  volley  of  musketry  immediately  came  through  the  half  closed  win- 
dows and  the  Greek  fell,  mortally  wounded.  The  Bulgarian  officer  then  gave  the  order 
to  fire  on  the  hidden  men;  and  if  my  memory  does  not  deceive  me,  thirty  were  killed. 
I  think  that  the  officer  acted  rightly. 

In  the  early  days  there  were  frequent  cases,  especially  at  night,  when  persons  in  hiding, 
Turkish  soldiers  or  others,  took  advantage  of  the  absolute  darkness  in  which  the  town 
was  plunged,  to  fire  on  the  passers-by.  The  governor  general  accordingly  issued  an  order, 
which  was  posted  everywhere,  stating  that  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  houses  whence  these 
shots  came  should  be  bayoneted.  This  order  was  indispensable,  for  the  victims  of  these 
attacks  from  behind  door  and  window  amounted  to  a  considerable  number.  Whatever  its 
severity,  it  saved  many  lives. 

I  can  state  that  although  I  was  in  Adrianople  four  times  during  the  fifteen  days  sub- 
sequent to  the  capture  of  the  town,  I  never  heard  that  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  committed 
acts  of  violation,  of  pillage,  or  any  kind  of  excess.  There  were  some  cases  of  robbery 
on  the  first  day;  but  they  were  immediately  and  severely  punished  and  not  repeated.  I 
should  certainly  have  known  of  any  instance,  however  trifling,  of  this  kind,  and  I  do  know 
that  although  certain  foreigners,  collectors  of  antiques,  did  offer  large  sums  for  carpets  and 
other  valuables,  no  one  found  anything  for  sale  twenty-four  hours  after  the  entry  of 
the  Bulgarians. 

The  destruction  caused  during  the  siege,  by  the  shells  of  the  besiegers,  was  very 
small  in  proportion  to  the  quantity  of  shot  used.  I  think  I  am  correct  in  stating  that 
in  almost  every  street,  not  in  all,  there  were  at  most  one  or  two  houses  demolished.  A  most 
incorrect  interpretation  has  again  been  given  to  "atrocities"  committed  on  the  Turkish  pris- 
oners suffering  from  cholera.  The  regime  to  which  they  were  subjected  was  undoubtedly 
severe, — exposed  as  they  were  to  the  rain  and  the  still  cold  nights,  and  altogether  deprived 
of  attention.  But  how  could  it  be  otherwise  when  the  hospitals  of  Adrianople  were  already 
overflowing  with  Turkish  wounded  and  in  such  a  deplorable  state  that  I  could  only  get 
twenty  places  (under  abominable  conditions)  for  Bulgarian  officers  (almost  on  the  point 
of  death)  who  could  not  be  carried  further,  and  who  had  absolutely  to  be  moved  from 
Karajousouff.  This  was  the  name  of  the  little  Greek  village,  seven  miles  from  the  town, 
in  which  was  situated  the  Russian  mission  of  the  Kaufmann  brotherhood,  of  which  I  had 
been  at  the  head  for  five  months  (two  months  during  the  siege  of  Adrianople  being  spent 
at  Karajousouff).  We  had  fifty-eight  tents  for  the  wounded,  more  than  5,000  of  whom 
passed  through  our  hands  on  the  days  of  the  attack.  With  the  best  arrangement,  it  was 
impossible  for  us  to  keep  all  the  seriously  wounded  cases.  Room  had  to  be  made  at  any- 
cost,  and  it  was  to  provide  for  that  that  I  betook  myself,  on  the  third  day,  to  Adrianople. 


340  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Despite  all  my  efforts,  despite  the  desire  of  the  Bulgarian  authorities  to  provide  me  with 
what  was  so  indispensable,  I  only  succeeded  in  getting  these  twenty  beds.  The  rest  of  the 
wounded  had  to  be  moved  first  to  Kirk  Kilisse  (Lozengrad,  fifty-five  miles  from  Kara- 
jousouff),  and  then  owing  to  want  of  room  at  Lozengrad,  to  Mustapha  Pasha  (seventy 
miles  off),  by  carts  drawn  by  oxen  over  very  bad  roads.  If  the  Bulgarians  were  unable 
to  provide  any  sort  of  accommodation  at  Adrianople  for  their  own  wounded,  was  it  to 
t»e  expected  that  they  should  succeed  in  lodging  thousands  of  Turks  suffering  from 
cholera  who  had  to  be  isolated  from  the  other  prisoners  and  wounded? 

From  the  humanitarian  point  of  view  the  lot  of  those  poor  fellows  is  obviously  to  be 
•deeply  commiserated,  and  the  Bulgarians  ought  to  have  treated  them  otherwise.  I  merely 
state  the  facts  as  they  were,  and  point  out  that  in  the  given  circumstances  actions  which 
-at  first  sight  appear  appalling  do  become  explicable.  In  any  case  the  accusation  should  be 
•directed  not  against  the  Bulgarian  army  but  against  the  abominable  medical  administra- 
tion which  has  escaped  criticism  altogether.  If  one  is  to  talk  at  all  about  cruelty  and 
inhumanity  personified  during  war,  which  is  itself  the  negation  of  all  humanity,  the  terms 
-must  be  applied  to  the  unheard  of  sufferings  and  the  absolute  want  of  attention  endured 
by  the  brave  Bulgarian  soldiers.  These  heroic  men  sacrificed  their  lives  for  the  country 
in  a  spirit  of  joyous  exaltation,  worthy  of  the  ancient  stoics.  They  perished  hideously, 
mainly  because  of  the  carelessness,  the  ineptitude,  the  incapacity,  the  abominable  indif- 
ference of  the  military  medical  authorities,  who,  with  but  rare  exceptions,  showed  a  com- 
plete contempt  for  the  science  and  profession  which  they  had  the  undeserved  honor,  to 
exercise.  It  is  at  their  door  that  the  guilt  will  lie;  they  should  be  judged  and  punished 
so  that  they  may  not  in  the  future  perpetuate  the  harm  they  did  during  the  war. 

The  European  press  has  been  full  of  "Bulgarian  atrocities"  against  Turks,  Greeks, 
"Serbs,  etc.  It  is  strange  to  see  so  impassioned  a  unanimity  in  making  accusations  that 
are  difficult,  almost  impossible,  to  verify.  During  the  course  of  what  was  called  the 
""second  war," — that  is  to  say,  from  the  resumption  of  hostilities  to  the  capture  of 
Adrianople,  not  a  single  foreign  correspondent  was  allowed  with  the  Bulgarian  army. 
Our  mission  alone  was  with  the  advance  guard;  and  I  can  certify  that  during  the  two 
months  I  spent  at  Karajousouff,  not  only  did  I  never  see  a  case  of  mutilation  of  wounded 
or  dead;  I  never  heard  one  spoken  of.  After  the  siege,  I  saw  Turkish  corpses  lying  by 
the  hundreds  on  the  roads  and  in  the  fields.  They  were  hideous  because  decomposition 
had  begun ;  they  lay  unburied  for  several  days  because  there  were  not  enough  people  to 
collect  all  the  d*.ad,  Bulgarians  and  others,  and  the  heat  of  the  sun  was  already  great.  But 
/  never  saw  one  that  was  mutilated.  We  saw  dozens  of  Turkish  wounded.  They  com- 
plained bitterly  of  the  horrible  way  in  which  they  had  been  treated  by  their  officers,  but 
no  one  of  them  said  anything  of  "Bulgarian  atrocities." 

When  I  left  Adrianople,  I  saw  the  members  of  the  English  Red  Cross  mission,  who 
had  come  to  nurse  the  Turkish  cholera  patients.  They  complained  of  the  want  of  proper 
accommodation,  of  the  lack  of  attendance  and  care,  but  no  one  spoke  to  me  of  cruelties 
practiced  by  the  Bulgarians  on  the  Turkish  prisoners.  Here  and  there  such  cases  of  course 
occurred,  but  I  shall  never  believe  that  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  at  fault  acted  with  the 
knowledge,  or  as  is  sometimes  stated,  under  the  instigation  of  their  officers. 

To  sum  up,  my  impression  is,  from  a  stay  of  five  months  and  a  half  in  the  midst 
of  the  soldiery  at  Philippoli,  Kirk  Kilisse,  Mustapha  Pasha  and  Karajousouff,  that  the  war 
was  a  crusade  of  ascetics  inspired  by  a  fanatical  patriotism.  The  orgies,  the  debauches,  the 
^"women"  who  play  so  big  a  part  in  war,  were  altogether  absent.  Neither  during  the  long 
months  of  the  siege  nor  in  the  joy  of  victory  did  I  ever  see  a  drunken  soldier  or  officer. 

I  could  go  on  with  this  letter  forever,  for  as  I  think  of  the  past,  still  so  near  and 
already  so  terribly  obliterated,  thousands  of  incidents  recur  to  my  memory,  lit  up,  all  of 


APPENDICES  341 

them,  by  the  flame  of  a  patriotism  ready  for  any  renunciation;  but  I  fear  to  trespass  too 
far  on  your  patience.  All  I  want  to  do  is  to  give  you  the  testimony  of  an  eye  witness  to 
the  inaccuracy  of  certain  accusations. 

Europe  is  guilty  of  profound  injustice  in  covering  with  a  cloud  of  hideous  crime 
men  who  fought  under  exceptionally  trying  conditions,  fought  with  a  stoical  heroism, 
making  no  murmur,  dying  like  martyrs  without  a  complaint,  their  hearts  full  of  faith  in 
the  greatness  and  force  of  their  country. 

I  think  I  know  the  Bulgarians,  good  and  evil;  and  I  can  not  but  bow  before  them 
with  the  most  profound  respect  and  the  most  ardent  admiration. 

If  you  think  that  what  I  have  told  you  can  be  of  any  utility,  make  what  use  of  this 
information  you  think  good. 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

V.  YXCOULL. 

2.     EVIDENCE  OF  TURKISH  OFFICERS  CAPTURED  AT  ADRIANOPLE  COLLECTED  BY  THE  COMMISSION 

AT  SOFIA 

The  two  following  depositions  were  drawn  up  by  Major  Choukri,  of  the  Engineers,  and 
Captain  Jummi,  third  battalion. 

Oral  Depositions 

No.  i.  CHOUKRI-BEY,  Major,  Governor  of  Adrianople.  He  was  seated  in  his  office 
when  the  Bulgarians  entered  the  town.  His  subordinates  reported  to  him  that  four  Turkish 
officers  had  been  killed  in  the  town  and  that  the  Bulgarians  had  searched  their  pockets 
and  rifled  them.  Similar  practices  took  place  even  in  the  barracks  in  which  his  office  was 
situated.  It  was  at  this  moment  that  Lieutenant  Nikov  made  his  appearance  to  take  over 
the  governorship.  Mr.  Choukri  complained  of  what  had  occurred  to  Mr.  Nikov,  but  the 
latter  was  unwilling  to  take  his  complaints  seriously.  Choukri  discovered  among  other 
things,  that  Lieutenant  Adil  had  been  robbed  in  a  similar  way  at  the  same  barracks,  and  it 
was  through  Choukri's  protection  that  Lieutenant  Adil  was  spared  such  things  in  the  future. 
Choukri  told  Mr.  Nikov  of  the  existence  of  a  store  of  meal  in  a  certain  mosque,  only  to 
discover  later  that  the  Bulgarian  officer  had  sold  the  meal  for  his  own  profit. 

Two  days  later  Mr.  Choukri  was  imprisoned  on  the  island  of  Sarai.  It  is  impossible 
to  describe  all  that  was  endured  by  those  imprisoned  on  that  island.  The  Bulgarian  sol- 
diers actually  killed  the  Turkish  prisoners  simply  to  get  their  water  bottles.  "With  my 
own  eyes,"  said  the  witness,  "I  have  seen  seven  prisoners  massacred  on  the  pretext  that 
they  were  trying  to  escape,  although  they  were  really  only  going  to  draw  water  from  the 
river/'  The  officers  were  left  for  three  days  and  four  nights  without  nourishment.  Soldiers 
and  even  officers  were  reduced  to  eating  the  bark  of  the  trees,  and  gnawing  their  shoe 
leather  to  assuage  the  pangs  of  hunger.  Some  hundred  perished  in  a  single  day  of  starva- 
tion and  sickness.  According  to  Mr.  Choukri  the  deaths  totaled  3,000. 

No.  2.  EYOUB,  Captain  of  Artillery,  was  sent  with  Refik  and  Ali-Nousrat  as  bearer 
of  a  flag  of  truce  to  announce  the  surrender  of  the  northern  district.  He  and  his  com- 
panions were  greeted  by  combined  fire  from  artillery  and  infantry,  despite  the  white  flag. 
When  they  reached  the  area  occupied  by  the  seventh  regiment  of  artillery,  the  soldiers 
disarmed  the  plenipotentiaries,  relieved  them  of  watches  and  purses  and  refused  to  bring 
them  before  the  governor.  A  soldier  struck  Eyoub  with  the  butt  of  his  musket  and 
threatened  to  kill  them  all  three.  The  first  soldier  was  joined  by  a  second  who  plundered 
the  two  lieutenants.  But  a  third  protested  against  the  behavior  of  his  comrades  and  led 


342  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Choukri  and  his  companions  before  Mr.  Nikov,  the  Bulgarian  lieutenant,  who  in  turn 
brought  them  before  the  colonel  of  the  twenty-third  regiment,  commanding  the  northern 
district.  He  dictated  the  terms  of  surrender  to  them.  Nikov  promised  Choukri  that  he 
would  discover  the  guilty  soldiers  and  compel  them  to  restore  what  they  had  stolen.  On 
the  next  day,  however,  Eyoub  saw  Nikov  mounted  on  his  horse.  *  *  *  He  tried  to 
impress  a  better  point  of  view  upon  him,  but  Mr.  Nikov  forbade  him  to  say  any  more 
about  it. 

No.  3.    TAHSINE,  Captain  of  the  Corps  of  Sharpshooters.     (Nichandje.) 

The  Turkish  soldiers  in  the  Marache  section  surrendered  to  the  Servians,  who  dis- 
armed them  without  any  molestation,  and  held  them  for  three  days  after  which  they 
led  them  away,  under  guard,  to  be  handed  over  to  the  Bulgarians.  On  the  way  loud  reports 
were  heard.  The  Servians  composing  the  escort  concluded  that  some  trickery  was  pre- 
paring. Nevertheless  they  continued  their  march.  Crossing  the  bridge  of  Arda,  they  ad- 
vanced along  the  Karagatch  road,  near  to  the  railway  station,  at  which  point  a  Bulgarian 
officer  met  them  to  take  over  the  prisoners.  Again  a  report  was  heard,  followed  by  a 
salvo;  the  result  of  the  drama  was  that  sixty  Turkish  soldiers  and  four  Servian  soldiers 
lay  dead,  and  a  Servian  sergeant  was  wounded. 

On  the  most  natural  explanation  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  were  responsible  for  the  shots. 
The  Servians  refused  to  hand  over  their  prisoners,  and  an  animated  dispute  broke  out 
between  the  Bulgarian  and  Servian  officers.  The  colonel  of  the  Twentieth  Bulgarian 
Regiment,  who  arrived  while  the  dispute  was  going  on,  ordered  the  Bulgarian  sentinels  to 
surround  the  first  group  of  Turkish  officers  and  put  them  under  arrest.  Some  of  us  who 
knew  Bulgarian  understood  him  to  say  that  we  were  all  to  be  shot.  Drawing  his  sword, 
he  commanded  all  the  captives,  officers  and  soldiers  alike,  to  lie  down  on  the  ground.  He 
asserted  that  they  still  had  revolvers  in  their  possession  for  which  he  wished  to  have  them 
searched.  Thereupon  the  Servian  officers  remarked  that  he  would  not  find  so  much  as  a 
knife  on  the  unfortunate  Turkish  prisoners.  At  that  moment  a  bomb  exploded.  The 
Bulgarian  officers  immediately  declared  that  it  was  the  Turks  who  had  thrown  it  and  that 
they  should  all  be  executed.  Another  bomb  went  off,  but  it  fell  in  such  a  way  that  it  was 
impossible  to  accuse  the  Turks.  Thereupon  to  the  great  astonishment  of  the  prisoners, 
the  Bulgarian  officer  declared  that  their  lives  were  spared.  "We  have  already  discovered 
the  Turkish  officers  who  were  to  blame,"  he  said,  "and  they  have  paid  their  debt." 

No.  4.  HAMDI-BEY,  in  command  of  an  artillery  battery.  Coming  from  Marache,  he 
was  marching  in  the  midst  of  a  body  of  seven  officers,  three  mounted,  the  other  four  on 
foot.  Some  Bulgarians  fired  upon  them ;  the  frightened  horses  made  off  at  a  gallop. 
It  was  then  that  the  three  mounted  officers,  Major  Fouad-bey,  Major  Rifaat-bey  (both 
attached  to  the  fourth  regiment  of  artillery)  and  Captain  Iffan,  were  slain.  The  four 
officers  on  foot  took  refuge  in  a  cafe.  The  Bulgarians  followed  them  thither,  but  some 
Servian  officers,  appearing  on  the  spot  saved  their  lives.  Nevertheless,  the  Bulgarians 
plundered  them  of  everything  down  to  their  pocket  handkerchiefs.  A  Bulgarian  captain, 
Mr.  Popovtchev,  of  the  first  company  of  the  first  battalion  of  Pioneers,  witnessed  the 
whole  scene  without  a  single  word  of  protest.  A  Turkish  artillery  captain  was  robbed  of 
ninety  pounds  Turkish  money  and  a  ring.  Mr.  Popovtchev  tried  to  recover  the  stolen 
money  but  his  inquiries  only  resulted  in  the  recovery  of  one  Napoleon  and  five  medjids 
(a  twenty  piastre  coin,  worth  about  3s.  8d.).  Having  nothing  to  eat  the  Turkish  officers 
had  to  pay  as  much  as  three  francs  for  a  bit  of  bread. 

No.  5.  ISMAIL  MAIL,  staff  doctor  (see  also  a  report  by  him  on  the  forced  conversion 
of  the  pomaks),  actually  saw  some  Bulgarian  soldiers  bayonet  two  Turkish  soldiers  at  the 


APPENDICES  343 

lime  of  the  surrender  of  Adrianople,  and  throw  their  corpses  into  the  river.  Later,  at 
Stara  Zagora,  he  saw  the  Bulgarian  sentinel  slaughter  a  Turkish  soldier,  Halil-Ali-el 
Sultanieh,  without  any  provocation.  The  soldier's  name  was  entered  on  the  rolls  as  having 
died  of  disease.  He  also  saw  his  orderly  Ahmed-Omer,  one  of  the  eleventh  medical 
company  of  Conia,  killed  at  Stara  Zagora  by  a  Bulgarian  soldier  without  any  good  cause. 

No.  6.  HADJJ-ALI,  officer  in  the  reserve,  serving  in  the  police  at  Adrianople,  deposes 
that  the  wife  and  sister  of  a  Turkish  paymaster  living  next  door  to  him  were  outraged 
and  then  butchered  by  the  Bulgarian  soldiery.  He  saw  with  his  own  eyes  Ismail- Yousbachi 
(Captain)  killed  in  the  street  by  Bulgarian  soldiers  on  the  day  of  the  surrender  of  the 
town.  A  Jew  protested  against  the  murder,  only  to  pay  for  his  protest  with  his  life. 
Further  he  saw  400-500  inhabitants  of  Adrianople  kept  prisoners  in  the  Konak  courtyard  of 
the  commandant's  headquarters.  The  Bulgarian  soldiers  stood  on  guard  outside  the  entry, 
four  Bulgarian  comitadjis  inside.  While  the  soldiers  pushed  the  inhabitants  into  the  yard, 
the  comitadjis  struck  them  with  the  butt  ends  of  their  guns.  In  the  yard  he  saw  four 
or  five  dead  bodies.  He  suspects  that  all  these  Konak  prisoners  were  killed,  but  is  not 
absolutely  certain  on  the  point. 

Deposition  of  Captain  Jummi 

After  the  fall  of  Adrianople,  Mr.  Minev  came  to  dress  my  wounds;  he  took  our  field 
glasses  and  pocket  pistols,  saying  he  would  keep  them  in  remembrance  of  us.  We  were 
taken  to  Tatar-KeuT.  General  Savov  treated  us  well  and  ordered  us  to  be  taken  to  Sofia. 
This  night, — the  night  of  the  13-14, — we  spent  there,  some  twenty  of  us  officers.  On 
March  14  we  were  dispatched  on  foot  towards  Simenli,  in  the  direction  of  Sofia.  At 
Simenli  we  were  conducted  to  a  Mussulman  house,  only  inhabited  by  some  women  and 
old  men  between  sixty  and  seventy;  the  other  men,  among  them  one  old  man,  had  been 
assassinated  by  the  Bulgarians ;  the  women  had  been  violated.  Two  hours  later  the  order 
was  given  for  us  to  be  taken  to  Kadi-Keui,  to  take  train  there.  Lieutenant  Boris  opposed 
the  order  and  set  us  on  the  march  again.  We  spent  four  nights  thus.  Ono  night  several 
of  us  officers  happened  to  be  in  the  yard  of  a  little  Mussulman  house.  The  people  tried 
to  ill-treat  us,  but  Major  Stefanov  of  the  thirtieth  regiment  gave  us  some  bread  and 
brought  us  to  the  tents,  where  13,000  prisoners  were.  During  that  day  500  grammes  of 
bread  were  given  out  to  us;  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  took  their  money  and  watches  from 
the  prisoners.  (The  next  sentence  is  unintelligible;  the  witness  appears  to  state  that  the 
reply  made  to  prisoners  who  asked  for  bread  was  to  strike  them  with  bayonets.)  I  saw  a 
Bulgarian  soldier  about  to  strike  a  Turkish  soldier  with  the  butt  of  his  musket  and 
Lieutenant  Boris  authorizing  him  by  a  gesture  and  the  words  "Do  so !"  Four  days  later, 
thanks  to  Stefanov,  we  were  taken  to  Adrianople.  On  the  road  I  saw  the  corpses  of  nine 
Turkish  soldiers  and  a  wounded  man,  his  face  so  bathed  in  blood  that  it  was  an  indis- 
tinguishable mass.  The  wounded  man  was  lying  alone  in  the  fields.  My  comrade  saw 
four  dead  bodies  arranged  in  the  form  of  a  cross. 

CAPTAIN  JUMMI, 
Fourth  Regiment,  Third  Battalion. 

Deposition  of  Choukri,  Major  in  the  Engineers 

I  commanded  the  Engineers  on  the  south  front  of  Adrianople.  Under  my  orders  there 
were  two  captains,  Ata-bey  and  Atif-bey.  After  the  surrender,  at  the  moment  when  the 
Bulgarian  soldiers  had  effected  entry  on  the  south  side  in  the  Greek  quarter  Keul,  they 


344  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

began,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Greeks  in  Adrianople,  to  enter  the  houses  and  to  seize 
whatever  they  found  there.  Everything  we  had  was  given  over  to  pillage  except  the 
trunks  we  had  deposited  with  an  Armenian,  a  Russian  subject  and  brother  to  the  dragoman 
of  the  Russian  consul.  This  same  Armenian  gave  shelter  to  the  wife,  child  and  female 
servant  of  engineer  Captain  Atif-bey.  The  Bulgarian  soldiers,  led  by  some  Greek  natives, 
forcibly  entered  the  house  of  the  said  Armenian  during  the  night.  They  seized  the  trunks 
which  belonged  to  us,  and  Captain  Atif-bey's  horse;  they  asked  for  two  hundred  Turkish 
pounds  as  a  ransom  for  the  captain's  wife  and  kept  repeating  their  demand,  leaving  them  no 
peace  till  they  paid  over  nine  Turkish  pounds  on  the  first  day  and  three  more  on  the  second. 

CHOUKRI, 
Major  of  the  Engineers. 

3.    DEPOSITIONS  OF  BULGARIAN   OFFICIALS 

GENERAL  VASOV,  Military  Governor  of  Kirk  Kilisse  (Lozengrad),  from  November,  1912, 

Commander  of  the  army  of  the  eastern  section  of  Adrianople,  and  from  March   13,  1913, 

Commander  of  the  garrison,  from  April  onwards  Governor  of  Thrace.  His  army  took 
Adrianople  by  assault  on  March  13/26  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

I  reached  Ghebeler,  twelve  miles  from  Adrianople,  and  rejoined  my  troops  at  ten 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  army  passed  through  the  town  amid  the  plaudits  and 
hurrahs  of  the  population.  The  Turkish  inhabitants  were  in  the  streets  in  great 
numbers.  Orders  were  given  to  the  troops  to  bivouac  in  the  quarters  between  the 
Toundja  and  the  Maritza.  I  soon  perceived  that  there  were  too  many  soldiers  in 
the  town  and  accordingly  telephoned  from  the  house  of  the  commander  of  the 
Turkish  cavalry  to  the  commander  of  the  army  not  to  let  the  troops  of  the  other 
sections  enter. 

The  Turkish  soldiery  made  prisoner  within  the  town  (they  had  cast  their  arms 
into  the  Toundja)  who  belonged  to  the  eastern  section,  were  collected  in  the  island 
of  Sarai.  They  numbered  about  12,000  or  15,000.  There  were  moreover  on  the  island 
some  civilians,  or  more  precisely,  persons  attired  in  civil  garb.  Since  these  were 
many  of  them  soldiers  in  disguise,  I  found  it  necessary  to  issue  an  order  stating 
that  any  persons  found  hiding  soldiers  should  be  shot.  I  then  ordered  the  prisoners 
shut  up  on  the  island  to  be  counted  and  divided  according  to  regiments.  About  ten 
days  were  allowed  for  this  enumeration,  in  view  of  clearing  them  away  from '  the 
island.  The  prisoners  of  the  Servian  section,  who  had  made  submission  to  the 
Servians,  were  under  guard  in  the  Hildyrym  quarter.  The  prisoners  of  the  southern 
section  were  in  cantonments  at  Tcheurex-Keui.  The  total  number  of  prisoners 
amounted  to  50,000  to  55,000  men. 

As  I  had  to  hand  Choukri  Pasha  over  to  General  Ivanov  at  five  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  I  immediately  sought  him  out.  Choukri  and  the  officers  of  the  general 
staff  asked  us  to  allow  them  to  keep  all  that  they  had  with  them.  Choukri  wanted 
to  keep  his  former  house  at  Kadyrlyx.  All  this  was  granted.  About  March  15,  they 
were  allowed  to  depart  for  Bulgaria,  the  subordinate  officers,  from  the  rank  of 
colonel  downwards,  being  detained  in  Adrianople.  As  they  were  departing,  I  told 
Choukri  that  his  orders  for  the  destruction  of  the  food  depots  had  displeased  me. 
I  pointed  out  to  him  that  the  people  who  would  suffer  thereby  were  the  unfortunate 
prisoners  from  his  army  who  had,  as  I  informed  him,  told  me  (on  March  14,  the 
day  after  the  surrender,  I  had  visited  them,)  that  they  had  not  eaten  for  five  whole 
days,  which  meant  that  they  had  fed  insufficiently  or  not  at  all  during  the  last  three 
days  of  the  siege.  I  explained  to  Choukri  the  inconvenience  caused  us  by  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Arda  bridge,  the  annihilation  of  the  provision  depots,  and  the  difficulty 
and  delay  of  communication  with  Mustapha  Pasha.  Choukri's  reply  was  that  he  had 
not  ordered  the  depots  to  be  burned;  it  was  the  work  of  tachapkaris  (hooligans). 
I  told  him  that  I  had  ordered  a  levy  of  a  quarter  of  the  bread  rations  distributed 
to  our  soldiers  to  save  the  Turkish  prisoners  from  dying  of  hunger,  and  he  thanked 
me  for  it.  This  measure  was  intended  as  a  temporary  expedient  until  the  goods 
expected  from  Baba-Eski  and  Mustapha  Pasha  could  arrive.  From  the  second  day 


APPENDICES  345 

(March  14)  onwards,  these  quarter  portions  were  given  out  to  the  enemy  soldiery. 
Some  days  after — perhaps  as  early  as  the  15th— I  divided  the  grain  among  the  regi- 
ments forming  my  troops,  in  order  that  so  far  as  commissariat  went,  they  might  be 
on  an  equal  footing  with  the  Bulgarian  army. 

The  prisoners  asked  permission  to  take  bark  off  the  trees  to  light  fires  with,  as  it 
rained  and  was  cold.  Even  our  soldiers  had  no  tents.  Permission  was  given  and 
they  cut  off  the  bark  with  knives  and  pickaxes. 

One  of  the  reasons  for  isolating  the  prisoners  on  the  island  of  Sarai  was  the 
presence  of  infectious  cases  after  the  third  or  fourth  day  of  the  capture  of  the 
town.  Choukri  told  me  that  cholera  had  appeared  ten  days  before  March  13,  but 
that,  at  the  time  of  the  entry  of  the  Bulgarian  troops,  it  had  disappeared.  In  effect, 
however,  the  disease  did  not  spare  the  island,  and  we  had  to  send  Turkish  doctors 
to  isolate  the  infectious  cases,  nurse  them,  and  bury  those  who  died.  I  should 
estimate  that  the  epidemic  did  not  cause  more  than  100  to  200  deaths  among  the 
population  of  the  island. 

The  story  of  the  prisoners  being  reduced  to  eating  the  bark  of  the  trees  1 
dismiss  as  purely  legendary.  It  is  true  that  we  could  not  do  much  for  them,  for 
our  own  men  were  very  ill  provided  for.  We  did  not  distribute  hot  food,  but  they 
were  given  bread  enough  to  keep  off  starvation.  When  the  prisoners  of  war  were 
rejoined  by  the  famished  inhabitants  of  the  town,  we  decided  to  spread  them  out 
along  the  railway  line  that  passed  through  the  suburbs  for  greater  ease  of  provision- 
ing. In  this  way  we  only  had  to  feed  the  poor  population  of  the  town  proper,  say 
some  15,000  to  20,000.  In  this  matter  we  were  greatly  assisted  by  the  English  section 
of  the  Balkan  committee.  When  the  bridge  was  reconstructed,  the  prisoners  were 
regularly  provisioned;  certain  officers  were  specially  told  off  to  superintend  it  and 
provisional  dwellings  were  put  up.  The  English  consul,  Major  Samson,  can  testify 
to  these  facts.  General  Broadwood  actually  wrote  a  letter  which  appeared  in  the 
Times,  about  the  middle  of  April  or  towards  the  end  of  the  month  (old  style,)  to 
defend  the  Bulgarians  from  the  accusations  made  against  them. 

The  incident  of  the  murdered  Jew  is  possible.  The  soldiers  were  exasperated. 
In  general,  however,  there  was  very  little  violence.  At  the  same  time  it  is  not  impos- 
sible that  prisoners  may  have  been  killed  during  the  night,  but  the  facts  have  not 
come  to  my  knowledge.  There  certainly  was  not  wholesale  assassination  of  prisoners. 
The  incident  of  the  Miri-Miran  mosque  is  known  to  me  from  the  story  of  Colonel 
Zlatanov.  It  is  as  follows :  Certain  Turks,  fearing  to  be  attacked,  shut  themselves 
up  in  the  mosque  with  their  wives  and  children.  While  the  troops  were  passing 
through  there  some  were  shot,  no  one  knew  whence.  A  young  Greek  appeared  and 
told  the  soldiers  that  people  were  firing  on  them  from  inside  the  mosque.  A  fairly 
big  patrol  moved  in  that  direction,  led  by  the  Greek.  Shots  were  fired  from  the 
mosque;  the  guide  fell,  and  I  saw  his  dead  body  myself.  At  that  point  our  soldiers 
attacked  the  mosque  with  drawn  bayonets  and  killed  the  men,  sparing  the  lives  of  the 
women  and  children.  This  was  the  first  regrettable  incident  to  occur.  I  went  to 
the  spot  in  person,  accompanied  by  Zlatanov  and  witnessed  what  follows.  The  Greek 
youth  was  slain  fifteen  or  twenty  paces  from  the  mosque.  Inside  there  were  some 
ten  Turks  slain.  Two  among  them,  a  mollah  of  some  fifty-five  years  old  and  a 
young  man  of  twenty,  were  still  breathing.  I  ordered  them  to  be  taken  to  the  hospital 
and  a  proccs  verbal  to  be  drawn  up.  This  is  the  solitary  incident  of  bloodshed  within 
my  knowledge  at  Adrianople.  While  I  held  command,  not  a  single  man  was  shot. 
I  was  replaced  by  General  Veltchev  about  April  1  (old  style).  The  mufti  repeatedly 
expressed  his  gratitude  to  the  Bulgarians.  On  the  second  or  third  day,  I  called  him 
before  me  in  order  to  calm  his  previous  terror,  and  he  told  me  that  he  had  not 
expected  such  humane  behavior  towards  the  Turkish  population  in  a  town  taken  by 
assault.  I  saved  Mr.  Behaeddine,  who  had  insulted  a  Bulgarian  officer,  from  court- 
martial.  As  to  my  general  system,  I  described  it  in  the  paper  Mir,  while  an  article 
by  me  appeared  several  days  ago,  previous  to  this  deposition,  for  which  I  had  then 
no  anticipation  of  being  called  upon.  [The  translation  of  the  article  follows.] 

As  to  pillage  on  the  entry  of  the  Bulgarian  troops,  this  is  what  I  saw  of  it.  It 
was  the  Christians  who  pillaged  the  Turks.  I  had  to  send  three  regiments,  one  of 
cavalry,  two  of  infantry,  to  watch  over  the  town.  Nevertheless,  all  the  Turkish 
stores  (of  clothes,  provisions,  etc.)  were  pillaged  in  the  course  of  the  first  day.  I 
ought  immediately  to  have  set  about  making  domiciliary  investigations,  but  throughout 
the  period  of  my  governorship  (down  to  July  1,  old  style,)  I  refused  to  sanction 


346  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

such  inquiries,  in  order  not  to  disturb  the  people.  Some  house  visits  did  take  place 
by  order  of  the  officer  commanding  the  town,  but  only  in  response  to  private  requests. 
I  gave  permission  to  the  officer  commanding  the  town  (Mr.  Chopov,  and  his  successor, 
Markov.)  to  open  a  depot  for  goods  whose  ownership  was  disputed  and  their  origin 
dubious.  As  for  depredations  committed  in  houses  inhabited  by  Bulgarians,  the 
Austrian  and  Belgian  consuls  came  before  me  with  demands  for  damages  in  cases  of 
which  they  gave  names  and  particulars.  I  did  not  comply  with  the  demand,  since  the 
allegations  were  incapable  of  proof.  I  have  not  heard  of  Mr.  Chopov's  carpets.  I 
myself  lived  in  the  house  of  Akhmed-bey,  opposite  the  Sultan  Selim  mosque.  The 
house  was  full  of  furniture.  The  proprietor  can  be  asked  whether  the  least  thing 
was  found  missing. 

In  an  article  which  appeared  in  the  Mir  of  Sofia,  dated  June  19,  1913,  and  entitled  The 
Negotiations  at  Constantinople,  Lieutenant  General  of  the  Reserve  Vasov  added,  over  his 
signature,  the  following  remarks : 

I  am  no  enemy  to  the  Turks;  on  the  contrary,  I  am  on  terms  of  intimate  friend- 
ship with  them  for  we  have  many  common  interests,  and  I  think  I  have  given  irref- 
ragable proofs  of  these  sentiments.  The  Mussulman  population  and  the  holy  places 
of  its  worship  at  Adrianople  owe  their  preservation  to  me.  After  the  town  was 
taken,  I  allowed  no  one  to  touch  a  hair  on  the  head  of  the  vanquished.  Out  of  the 
modicum  available  for  the  subsistence  of  my  soldiers,  I  fed  the  60,000  Turkish  pris- 
oners and  many  thousands  of  starving  wretches  belonging  to  the  Mussulman  popula- 
tion. All  these  facts  are  known  to  Choukri  Pasha,  to  the  foreign  consuls  and  to  the 
3,500  Turkish  officials,  whom  I  sent  to  Constantinople  with  their  families  in  prosecu- 
tion of  a  measure  entirely  honorable  to  the  Bulgarian  occupation.  Dr.  Behaeddine- 
bey,  friend  of  Talaat-bey,  also  knows  the  truth  on  this  point.  This  intelligent  Turk 
and  many  of  his  friends  certainly  remember  that  in  my  capacity  as  governor  of  Thrace 
I  did  what  I  could  to  help  them  in  their  misfortune. 

Order  of  the  Day  of  General  Vasov  to  the  Adrianople  Garrison 

Adrianople,  March  29,  1913. 

In  order  to  arrest  the  progress  of  the  cholera  epidemic  which  is  raging  among  the 
prisoners  of  war,  and  among  the  soldiers  of  certain  parts  of  the  garrison,  and  in  order  that 
precautions  be  taken  to  prevent  bodies  of  prisoners  from  infecting  the  population  of  the 
town  and  neighborhood  with  their  disease,  I  order  the  following  measures  to  be  taken : 

1.  The  authorities  in  places  to  which  prisoners  have  been  sent  are  to  take  care  that 
they  are  lodged  either  in  houses,  or  under  tents,  or  in  barracks  quitted  by  our  soldiers 
and  near  at  hand.     If  necessary,  new  lodgings  may  be  constructed. 

2.  The  prisoners  are  to  be  distributed  into  small  groups,  so  that  overcrowding  may 
be  as  far  as  possible  avoided. 

3.  Steps  are  to  be  taken  to  secure  that  the  quarter  in  which  the  prisoners  are  lodged 
is  not  infected.    For  this  purpose  deep  troughs  are  to  be  dug  for  sanitary  purposes,  watered 
with  petrol  every  day ;  and  the  smaller  troughs  are  to  be  covered  with  earth  every  day. 

4.  The   authorities   responsible   for   feeding  the  prisoners   are  to  see  that   bread   and 
other  food  stuffs  are  supplied  regularly  at  stated  intervals ;   a  warm  soup  of  a  hundred 
grammes  of  rice  and  two  hundred  grammes  of  meat  to  be  supplied  per  head. 

5.  Boiled  water  is  to  be  supplied  for  drinking,  and  the  Turkish  kazanes  taken  in  the 
Turkish  encampments  may  be  used  for  this  purpose. 

6.  The  prisoners'  sentries  are  to  be  changed  every  day,  or  if  that  be  impossible,  at 
least  every  two  days.    These  sentries   are  to  be  regarded  as   suspected   of  infection  and 
lodged  in  houses  or  tents  at  a  sufficient  distance  from  the  army. 

7^    *    *    * 

8.    To  prevent  the  epidemic  from  spreading,  the  employment  of  prisoners  in  any  form 


APPENDICES  347 

of  work  is  to  be  avoided.  If  it  should  be  necessary  to  employ  them,  particularly  in  the 
town  of  Adrianople,  they  are  to  be  employed  only  after  a  quarantine  of  six  days.  They 
are  to  be  lodged  in  separate  barracks  and  fed  like  the  soldiers. 

9.  All  prisoners  sick  with  cholera  are  to  be  sent  to  a  place  removed  from  the  Turkish 
hospital,  to  the  Italian  school  at  Karagatch,  and  to  the  isolation  ward  in  the  "Merquez" 
Central  hospital  at  Yanyk-Kychlm. 

10,  11,  12.    *     *    * 

13.  Every  facility  is  to  be  given  to  the  American  mission  for  assisting  poor  or  sick 
soldiers,  whether  by  medicines,  or  food  or  treatment  for  the  prisoners. 

14.  Those  responsible   for  the  care  of  the  prisoners  are  to  inform   the  head  of  the 
Anti-Epidemic  service  of  the  number  of  Turkish  doctors,  apothecaries  and  members  of  the 
ambulance  service,  and  of  the  number  of  prisoners,  in  each  group,  in  order  that  the  sanitary 
personnel  may  be  increased  wherever  it  is  necessary. 

Signed :     GENERAL  MAJOR  VASOV,  head  of  the  garrison. 
VOLKOV,  head  of  the  general  staff. 

4.    REPORTS  OF  THE  SPECIAL  DELEGATION  SENT  TO  RODOSTO  BY  THE  ARMENIAN  PATRIARCHATE 

The  Disaster  of  Malgara 

On  July  1/14,  in  the  morning,  three  officials  and  ten  Bulgarian  policemen  gave  back 
Malgara  to  Cheigh  AH  Effendi,  and  then  left  the  city  which  thus  remained,  as  did  the 
surrounding  country,  without  any  public  defense  and  without  authority,  until  noon  on  the 
following  day. 

This  anarchial  situation,  as  well  as  the  danger  threatened  by  the  animosity  of  the 
Mussulmen  and  Christians,  decided  nearly  sixty  Armenians  to  emigrate  hastily  into  Bul- 
garia. Several  young  girls  obtained  their  parents'  consent  to  join  this  company  of  emi- 
grants on  foot. 

Following  reports  sent  by  AH  Effendi  concerning  the  situation  of  the  town,  on  Tuesday, 
July  2/15,  at  four  o'clock,  Turkish  time,  a  part  of  the  Ottoman  troops  advanced  from 
Oludja  and  Kechan  toward  Malgara. 

The  Greek  and  Armenian  clergy,  several  prominent  people  and  a  great  crowd  of  the 
inhabitants  hastened  to  meet  the  troops.  AH  Effendi  addressing  the  commander,  expressed 
his  joy  at  the  return  of  the  Ottoman  army,  which  he  welcomed  warmly.  The  commander 
then  called  out  in  a  very  harsh  voice  to  the  crowd,  "Get  back,  you  cowards,"  instantly 
producing  a  very  unpleasant  impression  upon  the  townspeople  of  Malgara. 

Before  the  entry  of  the  troops,  there  had  been  no  sign  of  the  populace,  but  now  an 
ever  increasing  crowd  accompanied  the  battalions  as  they  advanced,  to  the  growing  anxiety 
of  the  Armenians. 

According  to  information  received,  a  third  of  the  military  force  sent  to  Malgara 
belonged  to  the  fourth  corps  of  the  army,  and  the  whole  force  could  not  have  numbered 
less  than  35,000  men. 

The  populace  began  to  excite  the  soldiers  by  repeating  that  the  Bulgarians  had  done 
nothing,  and  that  the  people  who  had  crushed  the  country  were  the  native  giaours — infidels. 
And  several  officers  led  by  the  bashi-basouks  penetrated  into  the  Armenian  quarters  and 
made  observations  on  their  own  account.  Monday  and  Tuesday  passed  without  event, 
except  one  or  two  petty  thefts.  But  on  the  morning  of  Wednesday,  July  3/16,  the  attitude 
of  the  populace  had  become  more  menacing  and  aggressive.  The  market  was  almost  entirely 
closed.  At  Bazirguian-Teharchi,  several  small  Armenian  shops  were  sacked. 

Although,  under  protest  of  the  shop  keepers,  the  military  authorities  had  forbidden 
pillage,  yet  no  authoritative  proclamation  against  it,  capable  of  inspiring  confidence  among 


348  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

the  Armenians,  had  been  published,  and  no  severe  penalty  attached  to  such  acts.  On  the 
contrary,  following  the  instructions  of  the  commandant,  on  Tuesday  and  Wednesday  the 
public  criers  twice  called  through  the  Armenian  quarters  that  "those  who  had  stolen 
objects  belonging  to  the  Mussulmen  or  who  were  in  possession  of  arms  were  to  give 
them  up." 

The  military  commander  of  the  place,  Mahmoud-bey,  had  the  prominent  Armenians 
brought  before  him,  and  shouted  violently  to  them,  "Armenian  traitors,  you  have  possessions 
and  arms  stolen  from  the  Mussulmen."  Furthermore,  on  the  evening  of  the  fourth  day  a 
sub-lieutenant  declared  openly  to  the  Armenian  soldiers,  "You  Armenians  have  helped  the 
Bulgarians  finely,  and  today  or  tomorrow  you  shall  be  rewarded." 

Naturally  all  these  things  on  the  part  of  the  officials  added  to  the  already  intense 
excitement,  and  the  proclamations  of  the  criers  incited  the  populace  to  the  grossest 
misdeeds. 

Terror  stricken  by  these  sinister  indications  of  the  catastrophe  about  to  overtake 
them,  the  Armenians  withdrew  into  their  own  quarters,  expecting  from  moment  to  moment 
that  the  storm  would  burst. 

On  Wednesday  at  midnight,  a  part  of  the  troops  left  the  city.  On  Thursday  morning, 
July  4/17,  some  soldiers  commanded  in  violent  and  rough  words  that  Bedros,  of  Rodosto, 
and  Garaleet  Minasian,  of  Malgara,  should  show  them  the  way  to  Ouzoun-Kenpru.  Garaleet, 
greatly  alarmed,  hid  himself  in  his  house.  The  pretext  was  found.  Immediately  a  number 
of  soldiers  accompanied  by  a  company  of  bashi-bazouks  went  up  to  Minasian's  house,  and 
Ali  Tchavoucheov  Malgara  set  fire  to  it  by  means  of  torches  soaked  in  petrol.  He  then 
set  fire  to  the  priest's  house. 

The  officer  second  in  command,  Mustapha  Pasha,  appeared  on  the  scene  and  asked  what 
was  the  reason  of  the  fire.  He  was  told  that  the  "Armenian  refused  to  show  the  soldiers 
the  way  to  Ouzoun-Kenpru."  He  gave  vent  to  a  burst  of  rage  and  called  the  Armenians 
by  every  vile  name,  "Race  of  scoundrels  and  rogues,  swine  like  the  Bulgarians,  traitors," 
and  so  on. 

While  houses  were  burning  in  one  quarter  of  the  town,  at  the  other  end,  in  the  market, 
towards  eleven  o'clock,  murders  were  being  committed  with  scarcely  a  pretense  of  excuse, 
and  the  people  were  plundering  freely.  The  fire  naturally  gathered  most  of  the  Armenians 
together  in  that  place,  and  may  have  been  purposely  meant  to  divert  them  from  the  further 
atrocities  that  were  beginning.  At  this  very  time  Yervante  Pejichkian,  Hadji  Varteres, 
Tartar  Oghlou  Kevork,  Toros  Mameledjian,  and  others,  were  assassinated  by  Sououlon 
Osman  Ogha,  Emine  Pehlivan  Oghlon  Hassan,  Hassan  Hodja,  Mehmed  Ali,  etc.  This 
fact  is  attested  by  Hadji  Manuel  and  others,  who  were  dangerously  wounded  in  the  course 
of  this  butchery.  The  wounded  affirm,  furthermore,  that  the  order  to  kill  was  in  the  first 
instance  given  by  an  officer. 

An  Armenian  covered  with  blood  passed  before  Heldhed  Ali  Pasha,  who  appeared  com- 
pletely indifferent  to  the  sight.  The  soldiers  and  the  Mussulman  population  forced  their 
way  into  the  Armenian  houses,  situated  on  the  outskirts  of  the  town,  and  sacked  them. 

Thanks  to  the  efforts  of  the  Armenian  soldiers  in  the  army,  the  fire  was  got  under 
control  after  twenty-three  houses  and  all  their  contents  had  been  destroyed,  but  the  oppor- 
tunity awaited  for  three  days  had  now  arrived. 

The  town  was  surrounded  by  a  very  considerable  number  of  troops,  and  by  several 
thousand  bashi-bazouks.  Towards  ten  o'clock,  Turkish  time,  fire  broke  out  again  in  several 
different  quarters  of  the  market,  and  owing  to  the  high  wind,  this  new  disaster  had  in  a 
very  little  time  assumed  terrible  proportions.  Suddenly  there  was  a  noise  of  explosion 
and  the  Armenians  imagined  that  the  city  had  been  bombarded  by  the  Turks,  who  were 
thus  exterminating  the  inhabitants,  and  on  their  side  the  Turkish  population  and  the  soldiers 
believed  that  the  noise  was  caused  by  the  explosion  of  bombs  hidden  in  the  Armenian 


APPENDICES  349 

shops.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  fire  had  spread  to  the  depots,  where  barrels  of  benzine, 
alcohol  and  other  spirits  were  stored  with  the  most  appalling  results. 

The  commission  of  inquiry  sent  by  the  Kaimakam  and  the  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
Talaat-bey,  tried  to  explain  these  explosions  by  the  bursting  of  bombs  left  by  the  Bulgarians. 
But  no  one  has  dared  to  assert  that  the  Armenians  employed  bombs,  and  if  the  explosions 
had  been  caused  by  such  things,  the  mosque  situated  close  to  the  place  would  have  been 
blown  up,  and  half  the  town  destroyed.  And  another  significant  fact  omitted  in  the  report 
of  the  commission  is,  that  not  even  a  wall  was  cracked  by  the  force  of  these  explosions. 

Panic  stricken  by  this  new  calamity,  the  Armenians,  threatened  by  both  fire  and  sword, 
rushed  towards  the  gardens  outside  the  town  and  there  took  refuge.  The  screams  and 
terrified  lamentations  of  the  women  and  children  were  heart  rending,  and  they 'huddled 
together  in  the  open  air,  not  knowing  what  impending  horror  might  yet  overtake  them, 
victims  of  unspeakable  anguish.  Fortunately  there  were  two  military  doctors  and  a  few 
detachments  of  soldiers,  who  were  able  to  be  of  some  assistance  to  the  wretched  people. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Kaimakam,  accompanied  by  the  chief  of  police  and  a 
policeman,  arrived  the  same  day  at  Malgara,  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  evening,  Turkish 
time,  and  made  some  effort,  useless  however,  to  put  out  the  fire.  That  night  he  appealed 
to  the  Armenian  people  to  help  extinguish  the  fire,  but  the  women  and  children  refused 
to  be  separated  from  the  men  and  clung  to  their  husbands  and  fathers  and  brothers.  The 
Kaimakam  then  turned  to  the  troops  for  assistance,  but  the  commanding  officer  replied, 
"What  does  it  matter  to  us,  if  the  people  most  concerned  are  indifferent?"  Here  a  soldier 
raised  his  hand  against  the  Kaimakam  whom  he  did  not  recognize. 

The  ruin  made  dreadful  headway.  Soldiers  and  bashi-bazouks  rushed  into  the  houses 
and  plundered  them  freely.  A  few  Armenians  who  had  the  courage  to  approach  their 
dwellings,  to  try  to  save  a  few  of  their  belongings  from  the  fire,  were  prevented  from 
entering  by  the  soldiers  who  called  out,  Yassak  ("It  is  forbidden"). 

We  even  hear  that  several  Armenians  were  arrested  for  this  very  natural  act  and  are 
still  detained  under  military  authority. 

At  six  o'clock  in  the  evening,  Turkish  time,  the  Kaimakam  returned  to  the  Armenian 
refugees  in  the  garden,  and  exhorted  them  again  to  lend  their  assistance  in  stopping  the 
fire,  himself  guaranteeing  their  safety.  Fifty  or  sixty  young  men  volunteered  at  the  risk 
of  their  lives  to  go,  and  thanks  to  theii  efforts  the  fire  was  finally  subdued. 

The  unfortunate  people,  of  course,  passed  the  night  in  the  open  air.  The  next  day 
the  bodies  of  the  victims  killed  in  the  market  place  were  deposited  in  the  church  yard. 

Eight  days  after  the  catastrophe,  no  Armenian  dared  to  venture  near  the  places  devas- 
tated by  the  fire.  The  ruins  were  still  smoking  and  the  Mussulman  children  were  digging 
out  various  objects  belonging  to  the  Armenians  and  running  off  with  them. 

A  week  later  the  body  of  a  well  known  Armenian  of  Malgara,  called  Bared  Effendi 
Adjemian,  was  brought  back  to  the  city  from  a  place  about  two  and  a  half  hours  distant. 
The  body  shockingly  mutilated  had  become  almost  unrecognizable. 

We  add  to  our  report  a  list  indicating  the  names  of  the  twelve  Armenians  killed  at 
Malgara,  of  the  ten  Armenians  wounded,  the  eight  lost  and  seven  taken  prisoners.  The 
number  of  shops  burnt  was  218  and  the  number  of  houses  eighty-seven. 

The  entire  material  loss  amounts  to  £T80,000. 

This  catastrophe  has  totally  ruined  the  Armenian  population  of  Malgara.  The  refugees 
are  camping  on  the  heaps  of  rubbish  and  debris,  and  in  their  despair  their  one  desire  is 
to  go  as  far  away  from  their  native  land  as  possible. 

July  17/30,  1913. 


350  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

5.    THRACE 

Deposition  of  Mr.  Kristo  M.  Bogoyev,  Head  of  the  Administrative  Section  of  the  Military 

Government   of   Thrace 

The  residence  of  the  governor  was  at  Kirk  Kilisse  (Lozengrad)  up  to  March  15  (old 
style).  From  March  19  on,  it  was  transferred  to  Adrianople.  Mr.  Bogoyev  remained  at 
Adrianople  down  to  the  end  of  the  Bulgarian  occupation,  leaving  it  in  the  last  train.  His 
evidence  is  concerned  throughout  with  the  last  days  of  the  occupation  and  the  departure 
of  the  Bulgarians — July  7  and  8  (old  style). 

On  July  6  at  6.30  p.m.,  the  Turks  having  reached  Ourli,  I  telegraphed  to  the  min- 
istry and  the  staff  office  for  permission  for  the  officials,  refugees  and  such  of  the  inhabitants 
as  wished  to  do  so,  to  leave  Adrianople.  Permission  was  received  at  11.30.  To  avoid 
disturbing  the  population,  we  did  not  spread  the  news,  and  at  midnight  the  cinematographs 
were  still  open  in  the  Rechadie  gardens  and  people  went  quietly  home.  Leaving  on  the 
morning  of  Sunday,  July  7,  between  three  and  four  in  the  morning  with  the  chief  of  the 
finance  section  and  the  head  secretary,  we  passed  the  night  at  Karmanly.  I  then  learned 
that  the  Turks  had  not  yet  entered  the  town.  We  received  by  telegraph  the  order  to  return. 
On  July  8,  we  were  once  more  in  Adrianople.  As  we  returned  I  counted  at  Marache,  from 
the  window  of  my  carriage,  ten  corpses  of  Turkish  prisoners,  a  sight  which  made  a  deep 
impression  on  me.  When  I  arrived  at  Karagatch,  I  inquired  of  the  Captain  Mihailov,  in 
charge  of  the  station,  the  cause  of  the  massacres.  Mihailov  explained  to  me  that  a  body 
of  prisoners,  fifty  to  sixty  strong,  was  employed  in  the  station  as  laborers  on  transhipment 
work,  and  lived  in  the  barracks  near  the  Arda  bridge.  The  other  prisoners,  the  larger 
number  of  those  who  had  not  yet  been  dispatched  to  Bulgaria,  were  "housed  in  the  place 
of  the  Ali-Pasha  mosque,  on  the  Tcharchi.  After  they  had  been  left  there  up  to  two  or 
three  o'clock,  they  had  been  sent  to  Yambol.  The  group  in  question  must  have  been  sent 
to  Mustapha  Pasha,  under  the  escort  of  the  militia  (Opoltchenie}.  Under  the  supposition 
that  the  Turks  had  reached  Adrianople,  they  endeavored  to  escape.  The  escort  fired  upon 
them. 

After  our  departure  on  July  7,  order  was  maintained  by  Major  Morfov,  who  took 
the  place  of  the  commandant  of  the  town,  and  by  Lieutenant  Colonel  Manov.  Eye  wit- 
nesses have  told  me  that  even  while  the  last  trains  were  starting  (there  were  eight  of  them 
on  July  7),  the  Greek  inhabitants  began  pillaging  the  depots.  The  number  of  the  pillages 
grew  rapidly.  Firing  on  them  was  begun  from  the  carriages  of  the  last  train  but  one, 
and  two  persons  were  killed  with  their  spoil  of  caps,  trousers,  etc.  Throughout  the  day 
of  the  7th,  Karagatch  was  without  military  or  civil  authorities.  On  July  8,  the  authori- 
ties reappeared  and  undertook  a  general  search  in  the  houses  at  Karagatch  and  the 
neighboring  quarter  of  Adrianople.  I  learned  that  stolen  arms  and  ammunition  were 
found  in  various  houses  and  that  the  thieves,  the  owners  of  the  said  houses,  were  shot 
to  the  number  of  twenty  or  thirty.  This  story  was  told  me  at  the  station  on  July  8,  and 
confirmed  by  Mr.  Morfov,  whom  I  met  on  returning  thither  after  an  excursion  in  the  town. 
I  have  no  knowledge  of  the  drowning  affair.  I  do  not  say  it  is  impossible  but  I  am 
ignorant  of  it. 

As  to  the  period  preceding  our  administration  in  Adrianople,  I  can  say  that  we 
did  regularly  meet  the  demands  of  the  mufti,  who  very  frequently  addressed  himself  to 
us.  Ten  days  before  our  departure,  the  mufti  asked  us  to  restore  the  Sultan  Selim  mosque 
to  the  Mahometans.  I  replied :  "The  mosque  is  yours,  but  it  will  be  difficult  for  us  to 
safeguard  it,  and  the  moment  for  opening  it  has  not  yet  come."  We  then  telegraphed  to  the 
Tsar.  Mr.  Danev  replied  by  ordering  me  to  open  the  mosque  so  soon  as  it  appeared  to  be 
possible  to  do  so.  I  promised  to  do  it  on  a  date  indicated  by  the  Turks,  that  of  the 
Ramazan  festival,  but  when  the  permission  had  been  given,  I  learned  that  the  festival 


APPENDICES  351 

was  over  two  days  ago.  On  July  2,  I  was  again  asked  to  open  the  mosque  to  celebrate 
the  festival.  I  refused,  because  the  Turks  were  by  that  time  approaching  the  Midia-Enos 
frontier.  On  July  3  or  4,  the  mufti  again  came  to  see  me.  I  assured  him  that  the  mosque 
would  be  handed  over  to  them,  and  that  the  Bulgarians  would  not  destroy  it.  Thereupon 
the  mufti  said  that  after  witnessing  what  the  Mussulmen  had  suffered  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Bulgarian  occupation,  he  had  thought  the  Bulgarians  incapable  of  watching  over  the 
security  of  the  Mussulmen.  He  was  then  on  the  point  of  departing  for  Constantinople. 
"But,"  he  added,  "thanks  to  you  I  have  remained  here.  When  you  summoned  me  for  the 
first  time  after  your  arrival  from  Kirk  Kilisse,  I  was  sure  that  you  would  receive  me  stand- 
ing. But  you  made  me  sit  down;  you  conversed  with  me  for  a  whole  hour  and  you  told 
me  that  although  you  could  not  yourself  do  all  that  you  would  wish,  you  would  neverthe- 
less remain  in  order  to  fulfil  your  duty,  and  you  invited  me  to  follow  your  example. 
I  remained.  I  find  at  present  that  you  have  really  known  how  to  take  care  of  us.  I  have 
written  in  that  sense  to  the  Grand  Vizier." 

I  know  that  Mr.  Veltchev  summoned  the  notables,  and  I  am  aware  that  he  threatened 
them  in  the  event  of  an  insurrection  breaking  out.  That  was  natural,  in  view  of  the 
insignificant  number  of  our  troops,  lost  in  the  midst  of  50,000  Mussulman  inhabitants. 

As  for  the  Greek  bishop,  his  deposition  (in  the  Machkov  report)  is  given  in  bad  faith. 
I  have,  personally,  only  had  two  letters  from  him:  (1)  He  stated  that  an  official  had  taken 
upon  himself  to  pronounce  a  divorce  between  a  husband  and  wife  at  Baba-Eski.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  the  case  was  that  of  a  young  man  who  was  driven  out  of  the  house  of 
his  fiancee,  after  being  entertained  there  for  six  months.  The  civil  authorities  intervened. 
(2)  The  Bulgarian  priest  by  the  Hildyrym  quarter  was  accused  of  having  forced  children, 
by  means  of  threats,  to  attend  the  Bulgarian  school.  This  accusation  was  investigated  and 
found  to  be  false.  I  ought  on  the  other  hand  to  mention  that  six  Ongarian  rifles  and  a 
military  costume  were  found  in  the  Greek  church  at  Keviche-have.  An  incident  which  shows 
the  state  of  mind  of  the  Greek  is  that  seven  or  eight  days  before  the  Bulgarian  retreat, 
the  lines  of  communication  between  Karagatch  and  the  military  administration  were  cut, 
and  the  culprits  discovered  to  be  Greeks  disguised  as  Bulgarian  soldiers. 

Deposition  of  Major   (Afterward  Lieutenant  Colonel)    Mitov 

He  was  appointed  major  by  General  Vasov,  on  the  very  day  of  the  entry  into  Adrianople. 
At  the  end  of  four  or  five  days  he  was  promoted  to  be  lieutenant  commander  and  finally 
commander.  He  remained  in  the  town  down  to  June  14  (old  style). 

The  explanation  of  the  defective  commissariat  was  that  the  bridge  had  been  destroyed 
and  the  depots  burned.  The  Bulgarian  soldiers  themselves  only  got  one  loaf  per  day. 
General  Vasov  ordered  a  quarter  of  this  ration  to  be  deducted,  and  this  was  done  by 
Commander  Tsernowsky.  The  quarters  were  distributed  during  the  first  three  days;  the 
prisoners  being  divided,  into  several  bodies.  I  made  a  tour  of  inspection  myself  in  the 
morning.  People  were  not  eating  the  bark  of  trees.  Some  bark  had  actually  been  cut  off, 
but  in  order  to  make  a  fire;  such  was  the  origin  of  the  legend.  As  a  matter  of  fact  after 
March  13,  which  was  a  fine  day,  we  had  a  tempest  in  the  night  and  floods  of  rain.  I  saw 
fires  lit  with  my  own  eyes,  and  a  shell,  which  happened  to  be  too  near,  went  off. 

On  the  day  of  the  entry  of  the  troops,  I  witnessed  touching  scenes  of  the  soldiers 
sharing  their  bread  with  the  people.  I  even  saw,  indeed,  men  falling  down  in  the  roads 
from  sheer  weakness ;  during  the  last  days  of  the  siege  the  bakers  sold  bread  only  to  the 
few  rich  people  who  could  afford  to  buy  it.  It  is  true  that  on  the  island  of  Sarai  the  folk 
were  so  weak  they  could  not  even  stand  upright,  and  appeared  the  shadows  of  their  former 
selves.  People  died  but  not  by  hundreds ;  there  were  thirty  deaths  on  the  first  morning. 

As  to  pillage,  the  following  is  what  I  saw  of  it :  At  the  moment  of  the  entry  of  our 
troops,  on  the  morning  of  the  13th,  I  passed  by  the  Young  Turk  club  (in  the  house  of 


352  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Abouk-Pasha)  and  found  there  two  carts,  full  of  furniture;  among  other  things  there  were 
brass  bedsteads  worth  some  thousand  francs,  mirrors,  wardrobes  and  valuable  articles 
of  furniture.  I  drew  my  sword  and  tried  to  speak  to  the  people,  but  as  they  spoke 
Greek  we  did  not  understand  one  another.  Finally  I  drove  them  off.  In  a  street  a  little 
further  down  a  watchmaker  was  being  pillaged.  He  cried  out  to  me,  "They  are  pillaging 
indoors."  I  ordered  them  to  come  out;  three  men  came  out  and  I  struck  one  of  them 
with  the  flat  of  my  sword.  The  Turks  cried  out  to  me,  "Bravo,  aferim,  sfendim,  these  are 
the  'Greeks' !"  But  there  was  no  way  of  stopping  the  pillage.  All  the  streets,  the  Sultan 
Selim  mosque,  the  Konak  were  full  of  people,  women,  old  men  and  children;  everybody 
was  carrying  off  his  spoils,  here  a  quilt,  there  something  else.  My  order  for  the  stolen 
goods  to  be  thrown  down  was  obeyed,  but  as  soon  as  I  had  gone  they  were  picked  up  and 
carried  off  again.  I  put  a  sentry  at  the  Municipal  Council  house  and  there  nothing  was 
taken.  On  several  occasions  I  entered  the  house  of  Turkish  officers  and  saw  civilians 
coming  out;  I  was  shot  at  three  times.  I  sent  out  numerous  patrols,  but  they  were  lost  in 
the  labyrinth  of  alleys.  I  then  ordered  the  inhabitants  to  whistle  to  warn  and  summon  the 
patrols.  An  instance  will  show  the  difficulty  of  putting  a  stop  to  pillage.  I  knew  one  of 
the  Turkish  officers  who  had  been  made  prisoner,  a  certain  Hasib-Effendi.  A  Greek,  Yani 
by  name,  pillaged  his  house  and  stole  his  horses.  In  the  same  house  another  Turk  was 
found  with  his  head  broken  open.  I  ask,  "Who  has  done  this?"  "A  Greek  from  Kaik." 
"Who?"  "I  dare  not  say,  I  am  afraid  of  being  killed."  "But  I  guarantee  that  no  one  shall 
injure  you."  "Unfortunately  you  can  not  concentrate  all  your  attention  on  me  alone."  I 
assigned  a  sentinel  to  the  family  of  Hasib-Effendi  and  they  went  to  live  elsewhere,  in  the 
baptches  (gardens).  Even  there,  a  Greek  occupied  the  same  house  and  found  means  of 
carrying  off  all  their  coats.  Quantities  of  pillaged  goods  were  found  in  all  the  Greek 
houses.  Among  these  were  the  effects  of  Dolaver-bey,  including  his  piano.  Any  number 
of  people  came  before  the  Municipal  Council  to  get  certificates  from  the  commandant  that 
such  and  such  goods  had  been  purchased,  but  the  price,  far  too  low,  proved  clearly  that  the 
goods  in  question  had  been  stolen  by  Greeks  and  Jews  and  re-sold. 

When  making  my  tour  of  the  town,  after  the  entry  of  the  troops,  I  stopped  before  the 
Sultan  Selim  mosque.  At  the  very  entrance  there  were  two  female  corpses.  I  placed  a 
sentry  at  the  entrance.  Some  Turkish  families  had  taken  refuge  in  the  interior;  I  was  told 
that  there  were  as  many  as  4,000.  They  had  brought  their  goods  with  them  and  bedding; 
"braziers"  filled  part  of  the  mosque.  They  sent  to  ask  me  whether  they  could  come  forth. 
I  gave  permission  and  had  them  escorted  to  their  homes  by  soldiers.  When  they  left  they 
put  their  belongings  on  carts.  Among  them  I  saw  some  carpets.  In  reply  to  my  formal 
question  they  stated  that  all  the  objects  belonged  to  them.  At  this  stage  I  was  not  aware 
that  there  was  a  library  attached  to  the  mosque.  On  the  next  day  I  learned  that  a  second 
entry  of  the  mosque  led  to  this  library.  I  immediately  betook  myself  thither,  found  the 
drawers  open,  and  all  the  books  lying  about  pell  mell.  Some  of  the  bindings  were  empty, 
the  books  having  been  torn  out  of  them.  I  was  told  that  all  this  was  the  work  not  only 
of  Greeks  and  Jews,  but  even  of  Turks.  The  priests  asked  me  to  be  allowed  to  keep 
the  books,  but  I  refused.  It  is  said  that  some  strangers  took  advantage  of  the  opportunity 
of  striking  some  excellent  bargains.  A  very  valuable  Koran,  among  other  volumes,  is  said 
to  have  been  secured.  Some  days  later,  an  officer,  Pocrovsky,  brought  me  some  Turkish 
books  in  a  sack,  but  they  were  ordinary  ones  whose  origin  I  failed  to  discover.  I  had  the 
Sultan  Selim  mosque  shut  and  ordered  that  it  was  only  to  be  open  to  the  public  from 
three  to  five  daily. 

I  know  nothing  of  the  case  of  the  captive  Turkish  officer,  but  I  have  seen  a  Bulgarian 
soldier  supporting  an  enfeebled  Turkish  prisoner  and  helping  him  to  walk.  Nor  do  I  know 
anything  of  the  story  of  the  pillage  of  a  watchmaker's  shop,  but  I  did  assign  a  sentinel 
to  an  Armenian  optician  who  was  afraid  of  being  robbed,  with  successful  results  so  far  as 


APPENDICES  353 

he  was  concerned.  In  the  same  way  I  had  Ali-pasha's  bazaar  shut  for  fifteen  days,  to 
prevent  it  being  pillaged. 

Finally  I  set  a  patrol  there  and  the  bazaar  was  as  a  matter  of  fact  safeguarded.  If  some 
Turkish  officers'  houses  were  plundered,  the  local  population  is  to  blame,  not  the  army. 
The  owners  of  Turkish  houses  begged  me  on  their  knees  to  give  them  Bulgarian  officers  as 
lodgers,  and  I  sent  them  several.  On  the  other  hand  the  Greek  population  of  the  "new 
quarter"  refused  to  put  up  any  officers,  and  it  was  there  that  disorders  took  place. 

I  know  Greek  houses  where  the  owners  gave  money  and  wine,  and  where  the  women 
offered  themselves  to  the  Bulgarian  soldiery  in  return  for  their  protection  against  pillage, 
and  in  some  cases  with  success.  I  know  too  that  a  Greek  of  the  Kaihm  quarter  put  on 
Bulgarian  uniforms  to  go  pillaging  in.  I  ordered  the  thieves  to  be  arrested,  but  during 
my  stay  in  Adrianople,  not  a  single  one  was  caught.  There  was  to  my  knowledge  one 
case  of  outrage,  that  of  a  gamin  by  a  Greek  on  the  Karagatch  bridge.  The  culprit  was 
arrested  and  punished.  No  outrage  was  committed  by  our  soldiers. 

In  order  to  facilitate  the  feeding  of  the  poor,  I  called  the  head  of  the  fournadjis 
(bakers)  before  me  on  the  second  day  and  supplied  him  with  meal,  ordering  him  to  make 
bread  and  sell  it  at  fifteen  centimes  the  loaf.  Meal  was  distributed  free  to  the  poor ;  I 
myself  assisted  therein.  I  caused  a  list  of  the  families  of  Turkish  officers  to  be  drawn 
up  and  sent  meal  and  money  to  their  houses. 

6.  ADRIANOPLE 
Mr.  Chopov,  Head  of  the  Police  at  Adrianople 

Mr.  Chopov  was  accused  by  the  "Russian  official,"  Mr.  Machkov,  of  having  himself 
sent  to  Sofia,  through  a  Russian  subject,  three  bales  of  stolen  carpets.  He  came  before  the 
Commission  personally  and  made  the  following  deposition  with  regard  to  the  pillage  of 
Adrianople  and  the  particular  facts  as  to  which  he  was  accused: 

On  March  14,  two  days  after  the  capture  of  Adrianople,  Delaver-bey,  a  rich  Turk, 
ex-mayor  of  the  town,  appeared  before  me  and  lodged  a  complaint  on  the  score  of 
the  pillage  of  his  house.  I  caused  investigation  to  be  made,  and  restored  him  the 
whole  of  his  furniture  which  was  discovered  in  Greek  houses.  The  Greeks  complained 
of  the  domiciliary  visits  undertaken  at  the  request  of  Delaver-bey.  Other  beys — 
Berkham-bey,  Derghili  Mustapha,  Hadji  Abram,  etc.,  told  me  that  the  cattle  of 
their  tchittiks.  near  Adrianople,  had  been  stolen  and  that  they  feared  the  attempted 
destruction  of  the  houses  in  the  villages  and  of  the  crops.  I  sent  soldiers  to  guard 
them  and  they  collected  the  stolen  cattle,  discovered  in  the  neighboring  villages, 
Greek  and  Bulgarian.  Delaver  and  Berkham  complained  of  disturbance  in  the  night. 
I  provided  them  with  watchmen.  I  visited  the  Turks  in  their  houses  to  restore  their 
confidence,  told  them  they  might  wear  the  fez  and  continue  to  move  about  freely. 
I  did  everything  in  my  power  to  restore  Adrianople  to  its  normal  aspect  in  three 
days.  I  assembled  Greeks,  Turks  and  Jews,  to  bid  them  be  at  ease. 

As  to  the  "stolen"  carpets,  I  did  as  a  matter  of  fact  buy  some  sedjade  (carpets) 
of  small  size,  in  the  shop  of  Fethi-Aga  at  Roustein-Pasha-Khan,  and  paid  fourteen 
Napoleons  for  them.  I  also  bought  some  from  Osman  (Roustein-Pasha-Khan) 
for  sixteen  Napoleons,  and  from  a  Jew  of  Besistein  for  eleven  Napoleons.  I  made 
one  package  of  all  these  carpets  and  had  them  taken  straight  from  Fethi-Aga's  shop 
to  the  counting  house  of  Demetriadis.  Witnesses  to  these  facts  are  Isaac  Demetriadis, 
George  Doukidis,  Avigdor  Abraham  Effendi,  Patchavre  Djemoise,  all  of  them  bankers 
or  business  men  of  Roustein-Pasha-Kahn,  and  present  when  I  made  my  purchases. 
I  bought  the  carpets  as  presents,  and  gave  them  to  my  friends  at  Sofia.  When  I 
heard  that  I  was  being  accused  in  Adrianople  of  having  stolen  some  carpets,  I  went 
there  to  call  for  an  inquiry.  I  went  to  the  Juge  d'Instruction  at  the  Court  of  Appeal 
in  Philippopoli.  An  inquiry  was  held,  and  the  charges  dismissed. 

At  the  Hotel  de  Ville  I  opened  a  depot  for  things  stolen  by  the  Greeks.  Carts 
full  of  stolen  goods  were  brought  thither.  For  example,  I  saw  two  stolen  pianos 


354  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

being  brought.  While  safeguarding  the  property  of  the  inhabitants  of  Adrianople,  I 
refused  the  request  of  the  Bulgarian  consul,  Kojouharov,  for  an  inquiry  on  the 
property  stolen  from  him,  simply  because  he  being  a  Bulgarian,  I  was  afraid  we 
should  be  accused  of  partiality.  I  carried  out  the  order  issued  by  Savov  and  Danev, 
permitting  high  Turkish  officials  to  leave  Adrianople  to  go  to  Constantinople.  In 
this  connection  I  went  to  the  Vali,  Chalil-bey,  and  asked  him  to  draw  up  a  list  of 
officials.  I  had  them  divided  into  groups,  and  gave  them  an  escort  as  far  as 
Dede-Agatch.  Khalil  thanked  me  politely  and  the  Turkish  press  recognized  the 
humanity  of  our  conduct  to  the  Turks.  In  the  end  it  was  actually  made  the  subject 
of  reproach  that  I  let  the  officials  go  instead  of  keeping  them  as  hostages,  whereas 
I  simply  carried  out  the  orders  of  the  general  quarter. 

Some  days  after  the  capture  of  the  town,  I  acceded  to  the  request  of  the  mufti 
that  three  or  four  mosques  should  be  opened  for  worship.  I  placed  sentries,  in  order 
that  the  prayers  might  not  be  disturbed,  for  about  two  hours  after  dinner  time.  The 
commander  Mitov  drove  off  some  two  or  three  Servian  officers,  who  began  burning 
and  destroying  fine  Korans  in  the  Sultan  Selim  library.  After  that  the  mosque  was 
shut,  only  opening  after  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  All  the  carpets  were  col- 
lected and  rolled  together.  They  remained  intact  throughout  the  time  of  my  being 
in  Adrianople.  A  fire  broke  out  in  a  minaret,  after  which  I  allowed  no  one  to  go  up. 

Statement  of  the  Chairman   of  the  Bulgarian  Committee  at  Adrianople 

Among  the  charges  not  mentioned  in  printed  articles  is  one  against  the  Bulgarian 
committee  which  had  to  distribute  the  loads  of  merchandise  among  the  wholesale  dealers. 
In  Adrianople,  "jars  of  wine,"  abstracted  by  members  of  the  committee,  were  talked  of. 
A  member  of  the  Commission  informed  the  persons  responsible  for  the  government  of 
Adrianople  of  this  accusation,  and  the  head  of  the  said  committee,  Mr.  Lambrev.  an  advo- 
cate, appeared  before  us  and  made  the  following  deposition : 

I  was  Chairman  of  the  Committee  for  distributing  the  loads  of  merchandise  over 
the  whole  area  of  the  newly  conquered  territory.  The  other  members  associated 
with  me  were  Professors  Boutchev  and  Chichov.  I  defy  anyone  who  accuses  us  of 
having  appropriated  a  cent  to  appear,  in  order  that  I  may  sue  him  for  libel.  It  was 
our  business  to  study  the  needs  of  the  population  of  the  whole  zone  of  Adrianople, 
Xanthry,  Tchataldja,  Kirk  Kilisse.  We  went  to  all  the  villages  on  the  railway  line  and 
here  we  sent  for  the  merchants  and  in  their  presence  commandeered  the  necessary 
wagons  and  goods  of  different  kinds  (petrol,  sugar,  salt,  groceries,  etc.).  At  first  we 
only  had  ten,  afterwards  fifteen  wagons.  As  stated  above,  we  commandeered  them  in 
the  presence  of  all  the  merchants,  without  distinction  of  nationality  or  religion.  An 
exception  to  the  general  rule  was  made  at  Dede-Agatch.  We  made  an  arrangement 
of  sale  and  return,  according  to  which  we  could  sell  the  goods  to  the  best  advantage. 
In  this  way  we  were  able  to  secure  the  people  a  supply  of  sugar  at  forty-five  centimes 
per  ancient  oka  (1  kil.  280  gr.).  From  the  beginning  of  March  on,  we  issued  a 
license  at  the  rate  of  fr.  500-1,000  per  wagon;  2,000  at  Kirk  Kilisse.  This  license  served 
as  a  guarantee  of  the  strict  fulfilment  of  undertakings  and  secured  the  right  of 
reselling  the  merchandise  at  a  fixed  price.  The  money  was  deposited  and  receipts 
given  at  the  central  offices  in  Kirk  Kilisse,  Dede-Agatch  and  Adrianople ;  it  was  repaid 
on  presentation  of  certificates  granted  by  the  commanders  and  mayors  of  the  towns  to 
the  effect  that  the  conditions  had  been  fulfilled.  There  was  only  one  case  in  which  the 
license  had  to  be  confiscated  after  an  inquiry,  and  there  the  wholesale  merchant  had 
sold  the  goods  exclusively  to  his  friends  without  notifying  the  mayor.  We  telegraphed 
to  the  mayors  to  regulate  the  selling  price,  allowing  fifteen  per  cent  profit,  and  the 
quantity  to  be  sold,  and  to  prevent  cornering  by  a  few  buyers.  The  retail  price  lists 
were  fixed  in  the  same  way.  For  example,  a  wholesale  price  of  forty-seven  cents  corre- 
sponded to  a  retail  price  of  sixty  cents.  About  June  20  (old  style),  when  military 
operations  recommenced,  there  were  seven  or  eight  wagon  loads  of  meal  to  distribute 
between  three  and  four  Greek  and  Bulgarian  merchants,  destined  for  Serres  and 
Drama.  The  licenses  were  issued,  but  three  days  later  all  traffic  was  interrupted.  A 
period  of  eight  days  elapsed  before  it  was  resumed,  during  which  the  licenses  remained 
in  the  mairie  under  the  charge  of  Mr.  Neutchev,  secretary  to  the  mayor  of  Adrianople ; 
the  money  to  be  refunded  on  presentation  of  the  receipts.  A  single  case  of  attempted 
corruption  came  under  our  notice.  About  the  month  of  March,  someone  sent  in  a 


APPENDICES  355 

postal  packet  a  sum  of  fr.  1,000.  Mr.  Boutchev  threw  the  package  and  the  money 
out  of  the  window  of  the  carriage  with  a  forcible  expletive.  The  attempt  was  not 
repeated ;  the  system  of  distribution  in  fact  made  it  impracticable.  The  system  was 
as  follows :  We  had,  for  example,  six  wagons  to  divide  among  130  persons.  We 
discovered  at  the  Tchardu  what  goods  were  at  the  moment  most  needed.  Next  we 
ruled  out  all  the  dealers  who  were  not  merchants.  Suppose  there  were  eighty  persons 
left.  We  divided  the  wagons  among  them  equally,  by  making  each  group,  composed 
of  some  seventeen  to  twenty  persons,  select  one  to  three  representatives,  who  then 
undertook  to  make  the  purchases  for  all.  The  procedure  was  recorded  in  an  official 
document  signed  by  all  the  members  of  the  Committee. 


APPENDIX  H 


Documents  Relating  to  Chapter  III 

THEATER  OF  THE  SERVIAN-BULGARIAN  WAR 

I.    SERVIAN  DOCUMENTS 

Mutilation  of  officers  and  soldiers  by  the  Bulgar  army. 

1.  Reports    addressed   to    the    Staff-Office    of   Uskub,    in    reply    to    circular    No.   7,669, 
of  June  20. 

(1)  The  commander  of  the  first  Moravian  division,  of  the  first  reserve,  relates  the 
following  facts  in  his  report,  No.  3,310,  of  the  20th  inst. 

The  first  regiment  of  infantry  relates  that  in  the  course  of  the  battle  near  Trogartsi, 
our  dead  were  found  with  the  organs  cut  out.  Several  were  mutilated,  and  the  son  of  the 
treasurer  of  the  regiment,  Vekoslay  Zuvits,  had  been  cut  to  pieces  with  knives. 

(2)  The  second   regiment  of  infantry  recounts,   that   after  the  fight   of  the   18th,   on 
height  650,   after   the   first   Bulgar   attack,   our   wounded   soldiers   on    the   battlefield   were 
mutilated  and  stabbed  by  the   Bulgars.     It  has  been  learned  that  all  the  following  were 
stabbed;    the    second    lieutenant   of   reserve,    Milan    Ristovits,    sergeant    Milovan    Laketits, 
corporals  Stevan   Peshits  and  Echedomir  Dimitrijevits,  soldiers  Radomir  Georgevits,  Mitar 
Milenkovits,  Tsvetan  Dikits,  Milan   Mitkovits,  George  Mihailovits,  Boshko  Limits  Randjel 
Marinkovits,  Antonie  Georgevits,  Dragntin  Georgevits,   and  the  corporal   Obrad   Filipovits. 

(3)  Of  the  third  regiment,  the  wounded  were  all  on  our  side  of  the  battlefield,  there- 
fore none  of  them  were  either  mutilated  or  stabbed. 

(4)  In  the  fifth  regiment,  it  has  been  proved  that  those  wounded  in  the  course  of  the 
battle  on  the  17th  and  18th,  on  height  650,  were  mutilated  by  the  Bulgarians.     This  was 
reported  to  the  commandant  of  the  Drina  division,  first  reserve. 

(5)  The  sixteenth  regiment  of  infantry  recounts  that  near  the  village  of  Dobrsham, 
during  the  retreat  of  the   17th  instant,  the   Bulgarian  comitadjis  threw  themselves  on  the 
wounded,  robbed  and  killed  them. 

No.  3,595.     (Telegram  sent  from  Chtipe,  June  30.) 

By  order  of  the  Chief  Staff  Officer  commanding,  Colonel  Dushan  J.  Peshits. 

2.  On    account   of  certain    movements    and   combats    in    which    certain    divisions    are 
engaged,  the  only  replies  received  are  those   of  the  commandant  of  cavalry,   and   of  the 
commandant    of   the    Drina    division :    first    reserve :    Milesh    Veliki.      Knowing    that    this 
information  is  necessary  to  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  we  shall  forward  it  as  soon 
as  received    to  the  General   Staff  Office.     The  commander  of  the  cavalry,  as  well  as  his 
staff  major,  were  not  witnesses  of  any  mutilation  of  the  dead,  or  of  the  wounded,  by  the 
Bulgars,   but  infantry  officers   have  given   them  terrible   details.     The  commander   of  the 
Drina  division  sends  the  following  reply,  No.  875,  dated  23d  instant : 

In  reply  to  order  No.  3,310  of  the  Commandant  of  the  Third  Army  Corps,  I 
have  the  honor  to  affirm  that,  during  the  combats  of  the  17th  and  18th  instant,  the 
Bulgars  mutilated  our  wounded.  Andjelko  Yovits  of  the  quick  firing  section  of  the 


APPENDICES  357 

regiment  of  infantry,  "King  Milan,"  had  his  head  opened,  his  ears  and  nose  cut  off, 
then  he  was  set  at  liberty  and  is  still  living.  Miloye  Nikohts,  of  the  second  com- 
pany, fourth  battalion,  fifth  regiment  of  infantry,  who  was  wounded  in  the  thigh, 
received  a  sword  thrust  in  the  neck  and  in  the  arm.  Stanislas  Aleksits,  of  the  same 
company,  who  was  wounded  in  the  foot,  was  struck  in  the  neck  and  in  the  cheek. 
These  last  two  were  still  alive  when  they  were  tajcen  to  the  field  hospital,  where 
they  recounted  what  had  happened.  A  wounded  captain,  George  Mandits,  was  also 
wounded  by  a  knife  thrown  at  his  head.  Captain  Yovan  Gyurits,  commanding  com- 
pany two,  fourth  battalion,  who  was  buried  under  a  pile  of  stones  by  a  howitzer 
and  remained  on  the  battlefield  which  the  Bulgars  occupied  for  a  time,  affirms 
personally  that  he  heard  the  Bulgar  soldiers  disputing  among  themselves  whether  or 
not  they  would  kill  our  wounded.  Then  a  Bulgar  officer  came  up  and  said  to  kill 
them.  I  have  not  received  any  other  report  from  the  commander  of  the  sixth  regi- 
ment, where  certain  like  occurrences  have  certainly  taken  place.  I  send  these  reports 
at  once  on  account  of  their  urgency,  not  waiting  for  the  report  of  the  sixth  regiment, 
which  I  shall  send  as  soon  as  received. 

Commanding  Staff  Officer,  Third  Army, 

General   Bozsha   Yankovits. 
No.  3,403.     (Telegram  sent  from  Hamzeli,  July  24/August  2.) 

3.  A  soldier  of  our  company,  Lioubomir  Spasits,  of  the  village  of  Kievats  district  of 
Masuritsa,  department  of  Vranie,  recounts  the  following: 

On  June  17,  in  the  course  of  the  battle  against  the  Bulgars,  on  the  height  which 
overlooks  the  military  huts  of  Gorni  Nogartsi,  towards  six  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
when  our  troops  were  retiring,  I  did  not  see  them  firing,  being  behind  a  rock. 
Suddenly,  I  found  myself  surrounded  by  Bulgarian  soldiers,  who  seized  me,  snatched 
away  my  carbine,  and  led  me  before  their  commander.  He  and  another  officer 
questioned  me  about  our  troops,  our  fortifications,  where  they  were  placed,  etc. 
I  replied  that  I  knew  nothing.  Then  they  led  me  away.  In  the  evening,  the  same 
officer  came  again  and  asked  me  the  same  questions  about  the  Servian  army.  As  ! 
replied  again  that  I  knew  nothing,  he  began  to  beat  me,  to  jump  at  my  throat  with 
gross  language.  Then  he  searched  me  and  took  twenty  francs  and  continued  to  beat 
me  about  the  head  till  I  lost  consciousness. 

,Next  day,  the  18th,  they  gave  me  a  rifle  and  some  cartridges,  and  ordered  me  to 
fire  on  our  troops.  As  I  refused,  the  officer  again  struck  me.  To  escape  this,  I  fired, 
but  in  the  air.  When  he  saw  this,  he  hit  me  again  about  the  head,  abusing  me,  then 
obliged  me  to  stand  within  range  of  our  own  guns,  so  that  I  should  be  killed  by  our 
soldiers.  By  an  extraordinary  piece  of  luck,  I  was  not  struck.  The  same  afternoon, 
when  they  saw  our  troops  advance,  the  Bulgars  began  to  flee.  They  took  me,  and 
I  remained  all  the  time  with  them,  till  a  shrapnel  burst  beside  me.  Then  my  guards 
took  to  flight,  and  I  remained  stretched  in  the  corn.  When  they  saw  from  a  distance 
that  I  was  still  alive,  they  fired  at  me,  but  I  succeeded  in  escaping.  I  have  forgotten 
to  say  that  at  the  time  I  was  made  prisoner,  there  was  a  soldier  of  our  company  near 
me,  Peter  Radovanovits,  of  Masuritsa,  district  of  Masuritsa,  department  of  Vranie. 
He  was  wounded  in  the  leg.  The  Bulgars  gashed  him  with  knives,  insulted  him  and 
said  it  was  better  worth  while  to  kill  that  Servian  dog  than  drag  him  behind  them. 

Commandant  Captain  Sheten  Petrovits, 

By  order  of  Commanding  Staff  Officer, 

Colonel  Dushan  J.  Peshits. 
No.  3,667.     (Telegram  sent  to  Sokolartsi,  7  July.) 

4.  Received   from  Commanding  Officer,  Timok  Division,   Second  Reserve,   report   fol- 
lowing No.  1,057,  dated  21st  instant : 

In  reply  to  order  No.  4,100  of  the  19th  instant,  I  have  the  honor  to  relate  the 
following  concerning  the  atrocities  committed  by  the  Bulgar  army: 

(1)     In  our  division. . 

(a)  Thirteenth  regiment:  Arandjel  Zivkovits,  of  Metovitsa,  district  of  Zaietchar, 
department  of  Timok,  soldier  of  the  second  company,  fourth  battalion,  recounts  that 
while  his  regiment  gave  up  its  position  close  to  the  military  huts  of  Shobe,  June  21, 


358  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

thirty  soldiers  of  this  regiment  were  surrounded  by  Bulgars.  The  leader,  a  sergeant 
of  the  Bulgar  troops,  wished  to  kill  them  then  and  there,  after  taking  their  watches 
and  money.  But  he  at  last  in  response  to  the  prisoners'  entreaties,  let  them  go,  but 
gave  the  order  to  fire  upon  them  as  they  ran,  so  that  half  of  them  fell  dead  and  the 
rest  were  wounded. 

(b)  Fourteenth  regiment:  The  commander  of  the  second  battalion  heard  from 
wounded   soldiers,   eye   witnesses   of   the   facts,   that   at   the  battle   of   Krivolak,   the 
Bulgars  wounded  our  second  lieutenant,  Voislav  Spirits,  who  was  lying  dangerously 
wounded. 

Marian  Dimts,  soldier  of  the  first  company,  third  battalion,  reports  that  on 
June  19,  at  the  battle  of  Pepelishte,  he  saw  the  Bulgars  cut  off  the  head  of  a 
wounded  Servian  soldier. 

Milan  Matits  of  the  fourth  company,  same  battalion,  recounts  that  he  saw  a 
Bulgarian  soldier  transfix  one  of  our  wounded  with  a  bayonet. 

Randjel  Nikohts,  of  the  first  company,  third  battalion,  saw  a  Bulgar  soldier 
strike  a  badly  wounded  Servian  soldier  on  the  head  and  crush  it  in. 

Stoian  Aleksits  of  the  second  company,  third  battalion,  saw  a  Bulgar  hit  the 
wounded  Aleksa  Nikolits  with  a  sword,  until  he  died. 

Svetozan  Miloshevits,  second  company,  fourth  battalion,  taken  prisoner  at  the 
battle  of  Pepelishte,  but  who  later  succeeded  in  escaping,  saw  the  Bulgars  pierce 
twenty  of  our  men  with  knives. 

Aleksa  Ristits,  second  company,  fourth  battalion,  says  that  at  the  battle  of 
Krivolak,  June  21,  he  saw  a  Servian  volunteer  who  had  been  badly  hurt  and  whose 
eyes  had  been  put  out. 

Milivoie  Niloikovits,  second  company,  fourth  battalion,  says  that  June  21,  at 
the  extremity  of  our  right  wing,  he  saw  the  Bulgars  striking  a  wounded  Servian 
officer  with  their  muskets.  Then  they  struck  him  with  knives. 

Marko  Milanovits,  third  company,  third  battalion,  recounts  that  on  the  morning 
of  June  20,  after  the  battle  of  Pepelishte,  the  Bulgars  forced  the  commander  of  the 
fourth  company,  third  battalion,  Zivoin  Budimirovits,  captain  of  reserve,  who  had 
been  taken  prisoner,  to  give  the  order  to  six  men  to  take  off  their  uniforms.  The 
uniforms  and  the  money  they  had  with  them,  were  seized  by  the  Bulgars.  Then  the 
men  were  led,  bare-foot  and  shivering  with  cold,  tc  the  firing-line.  Three  were 
killed;  all  the  others  were  found  injured. 

(c)  Fifteenth  regiment: 

Zivoin  Miloshevits,  first  company,  first  battalion,  relates  that  on  June  21,  he  and 
twenty  others  were  taken  prisoners  at  Shobe.  They  were  handed  over  to  a  Bulgar 
sergeant  and  six  soldiers.  The  sergeant  asked  them  for  money  in  exchange  for 
their  liberty,  and  those  who  had  any  were  allowed  to  go.  Zivoin  Miloshevits  and 
Bozidar  Savits,  both  from  Rashevitsa,  had  no  money.  Their  tongues  were  cut.  The 
other  men  were  cut  to  pieces.  They  were  found  dead. 

Tchedomir  Bogdanovits  was  tied,  then  cut  in  pieces. 

Sefgeant  Kosta  Damianovits,  fifth  company,  fifth  battalion,  taken  prisoner  at 
Shobe  on  June  21,  bought  his  liberty  from  a  Bulgar  sergeant.  He  saw  two  Bulgar 
soldiers  stab  and  beat  the  following  Servian  prisoners,  all  of  the  same  battalion : 
Svetozar  Stanishits  of  Obredja,  Adam  loksimovits  of  Sovinovo  and  Alexandre 
Matits  of  Katuna. 

Sergeant  Padovan  Radovanovits,  military  intendant,  reports  that  on  June  21,  at 
the  battle  of  Krivolak,  he  saw  Bulgar  soldiers  pierce  a  wounded  Servian  with  their 
bayonets  and  fire  upon  another  badly  wounded  man. 

Milan  Miloshevits,  second  company,  third  battery,  reports  that  on  June  21  he  was 
taken  prisoner  at  Shobe  by  the  Bulgars,  and  that  after  he  and  some  others  had 
bought  their  liberty  by  giving  money  to  a  Bulgar  officer  of  low  rank,  they  had  been 
permitted  to  go  free,  but  had  been  fired  upon  as  they  fled,  and  several  had  been 
killed. 

Zivko  Pantits,  fourth  company,  third  battalion,  reports  that  on  June  17,  he  saw 
Bulgars  stabbing  a  wounded  Servian  soldier  with  their  bayonets. 

Lioubomir  Milosavevits,  fifth  company,  same  battalion,  relates  that  when  the 
Servian  troops  retreated,  he  remained  in  hiding.  He  was  two  days  crouched  in  a 
ditch,  where  he  saw  a  dead  Servian  whose  eyes  had  been  torn  out. 

Corporal  Zivadits  Milits,  of  the  first  company,  same  battalion,  relates  that 
above  the  village  of  Dragovo,  as  our  troops  advanced,  he  saw  beside  a  hut  a  dead 
Servian  soldier,  who  had  been  tied  to  a  stake  with  wire  and  roasted. 


APPENDICES  359 

Sheten  Mikolits,  same  company,  same  battalion,  reports  that  on  June  19,  he 
saw  lieutenant  of  reserve,  Michel  Georgevits,  lying  dead  by  the  roadside,  completely 
naked,  with  four  wounds  in  the  breast  and  one  in  the  jaw. 

Arsenic  Z'ivkovits,  third  company,  same  battalion,  reports  that  on  June  17,  he 
saw  Bulgar  soldiers  tossing  a  Servian  prisoner  in  the  air  on  their  bayonets,  and 
when  he  fell  on  the  ground  they  shot  him  with  their  rifles. 

The  captain  of  reserve,  Pera  Tutsakovits,  commanding  second  company,  fourth 
battalion,  reports  that  on  June  18,  he  saw  a  Servian  soldier  who  had  been  tied  to 
a  stake  and  roasted. 

(d)     Half  battalion  of  engineers: 

Milivoie  Vasits,  engineer,  reports  that  on  June  21,  at  the  right  wing  of  the 
position  close  to  the  Shobe  manufactory,  the  Bulgars  took  him  prisoner  with  twenty 
other  soldiers  and  two  officers  of  the  fourteenth  regiment.  The  officers  were  placed 
apart,  while  the  soldiers  were  led  in  front  of  the  army  and  fired  upon.  Many 
prisoners  fell  dead.  He  and  three  others  were  seriously  wounded. 

(2)     Montenegrin    Division. 

The  commander  of  this  division  reports  that  Lieutenant  lovan  Trehishianin,  of 
Lopushima,  who  fell  on  the  9th  instant  at  Godevari,  was  found  on  the  18th  with  a 
ball  in  the  left  side  of  his  breast,  his  throat  gashed,  and  his  stomach  pierced  with  a 
a  bayonet.  The  Bulgarians  had  taken  his  boots,  socks,  gaiters,  and  trousers. 

By  order  of  the   Commandant, 

Assistant    Chief-of-Staff, 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Milan  Gr.  Milanovits. 
No.  4,147.     (Telegram  sent  from   Sokolartsi,  July  22.) 

5.  From   the   commander  of  the  army  cavalry,   I  have  received  the   following  report, 
dated  19th  instant: 

Conforming  to  order  04°  4,100  of  the  commandant,  dated  19th  instant,  I  have 
the  honor  to  transmit  the  following  information : 

(1)  Cavalry-captain    Dushan    Dimitrijevits,    acting-commandant    of    the    second 
reserve  of  cavalry  of  Timok,  affirms  that  on  the   17th,  he   saw  with  his  own   eyes, 
Bulgars   on   the   fortifications   of  Garvanski,   tossing  a  wounded    Servian    soldier   on 
the  points  of  their  bayonets,  crying  "Hurrah,"  when  the  wretched  man  howled  and 
writhed   in    agony.     The   same    fact    is    confirmed   by   the    commandant    of   the    first 
squadron,   Captain   Miliya  Veselinovits,   and   his   sergeant,   George   Popovits. 

(2)  The  commandant  of  the  second  squadron  of  cavalry,  Captain  Spira  Tcha- 
kovski,   swears  to  having  seen  the  roasted  body  of  a  Servian   soldier,  on  June  25, 
north  of  the  village  of  Kara  Hazani. 

(3)  The     commander     of     cavalry,     quick-firing     section,     Captain     Dimitriye 
Tchemirikits,  swears  to  have  seen  two  roasted  bodies,  one  near  the  camp  of  Shobe, 
the   other   near   the   village    of    Krivolak.     Whose   bodies    they    were    or    who    had 
burnt  them,  he  could  not  say.     Farther  on,  he  affirms  that  four  of  our  wounded  of 
the  fifteenth  regiment  had  their  wounds  dressed  by  Bulgarian  doctors  and  were  then 
taken  to  a  Bulgar  hospital,  where  there   were   four  healthy  soldiers,   forgotten,  who 
had  been  condemned  to   death   by  the   Bulgars.     Thanks  to  a  Bulgar   sergeant,  the 
wounded  men  succeeded  in  escaping.     They  relate  that  during  the  time  they  were  in 
hospital,  the  wounded  Bulgars  used  to  show  their  wounds  and  say:    "Look  at  the 
work  of  your  bombs."     Nothing  else  to  point  out  in  this   section. 

From  the  commandant  of  the  Moravian  division,  cavalry,  first  reserve,  nothing 
noted  concerning  Bulgarian  cruelties. 

(4)  The  commandant  of  the  Moravian  division,  cavalry,  second  reserve,  reports 
that  the  patrols  found  the  mutilated  bodies  of  our  soldiers  in  several  localities.     The 
hands  were  cut  off,  the  skin  flayed  off  the  back,  the  head  and  legs  removed.     All  the 
preceding  is  forwarded  as  the  continuation  of  the  reports  sent  in  earlier. 

The   Commandant, 

General   Bozsha  Yankovits. 
No.  9.206. 
No.  4,111.     (Telegram  sent  from   Sokolartsi,  July  20.) 

6.  The   commandant   of   Moravian   division,   first   reserve,   sends   the    report   No.   924, 
dated  June  29,  as  the  continuation  of  report  No.  852  of  June  26.     The  following  reports 
have  been  sent  by  the  first  regiment  of  infantry: 


360  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

(1)  In  passing  the  positions  where  the  combat  took  place  between  the  Bulgar 
and  the  Timok  division,  second  reserve,  we  found  the  mutilated  bodies  of  some  of 
our  soldiers.     One  of  them  had  his  head  cut  off,  the  body  was  buried  under  a  pile 
of  stones  and  we  could  not  find  the  head.    The  face  of  another  had  been  completely 
skinned.     Another  had  his  eyes  torn  out,  another  was  roasted. 

(2)  On  the  positions  between  the  camps  of  Shobe  and  Toplika,  where  the  first 
battalion   had   marched   in   advance   on   June   24   and   25,   we   encountered    frightful 
examples   of  mutilation   of   Servian   soldiers,  killed   or   wounded   during   the   battle. 
Some  had  their  eyes  put  out,  others  the  nose  and  ears  mangled,  and  the  mouth  slit 
from  one  ear  to  another.     Others  were  shamefully  mutilated,  the  stomach  cut  open 
and  the  entrails  outside. 

By  order  of  the  Commander  General  Staff, 

D.  J.  Peshits. 
No.  3,594.     (Telegram  sent  from  Chtipe,  July  30.") 

7.  The  Commander  of  the  Danube  division,  first  of  the  reserve,  reports  the  following: 

The  commander  of  the  seventh  regiment  of  infantry  affirms :  Occupying  the 
positions  Retki  Buki,  I  found  that  the  soldiers  of  the  third  regiment,  second  reserve, 
had  been  massacred.  There  were  more  than  twenty  corpses  with  the  head  split  in  two. 

The  commander  of  the  eighteenth  regiment  of  infantry  of  the  first  reserve,  sends  the 
report  of  the  commander  of  the  second  company,  fourth  battalion,  same  regiment,  which 
runs  as  follows : 

On  the  19th  of  this  month  I  met  Voeslhav  Markovits,  second  lieutenant  of  the 
third  regiment,  seriously  wounded.  I  am  not  sure  of  his  first  name,  but  the  family 
name  is  correct. 

Description :  Dark,  thick  mustache  and  black  beard,  blue  eyes ;  wounded  in  the 
breast;  he  was  found  stretched  on  a  hand-cart.  In  reply  to  my  questions,  he  related 
as  follows :  I  was  wounded  three  days  ago.  1  fell  on  the  battlefield  in  the  wood. 
Very  soon  an  ambulance  patrol  of  Bulgars  came  up,  took  my  watch  out  of  my  pocket, 
my  revolver,  my  field  glasses,  all  my  money,  and  my  epaulettes.  Two  other  Bulgar 
ambulance  men  came  up  afterwards,  and  they  also  searched  me.  I  begged  both 
parties  to  take  me  to  their  surgeons,  but  they  refused.  This  officer  states  that  the 
Bulgars  killed  four  wounded  soldiers  that  they  saw  on  the  road,  and  that  they  did 
the  same  with  the  Servian  prisoners. 

The  commandants  of  the  other  regiments,  have  had  no  cases  of  our  men  killed, 
wounded,  or  maltreated  by  the  Bulgars. 

By  order  of  the  Commandant, 

Colonel  Peshits. 
No.  1,408.     (Telegram  from  Gradichte,  July  19.) 

8.  Report  of  the  commission  named  by  order  of  the  commandant  of  the  first  company, 
third  battalion,  first  regiment  of  infantry,  regiment  of  Prince  Nilosh  the  Great: 

The  undersigned  members  examined  the  carbonized  body  of  a  soldier,  at  five  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon,  on  the  Tcheska  positions.  They  swear  to  the  following: 

(1)  The  man  was  a  Servian  soldier;  this  was  confirmed  by  the  remains  of  a  Servian 
uniform  found  near  the  corpse,  a  sword,  a  cartridge  box,  ammunition,  a  coat  very  much 
burned,  and  a  fragment  of  tunic. 

(2)  Close  to  the  carbonized   corpse,   we   found   a  bloody  bandage,  proving  that  the 
man  was  wounded  when  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Bulgars,  and  was  thus  burnt. 

(3)  In  examining  the  ground  where  the  man  had  been  burnt,  the  commission  noticed 
that  it  had  been  trampled  and  dug  up,  a  proof  that  the  unfortunate  man  had  struggled 
desperately  against  his  murderers. 

(4)  Half  burnt  letters  found  near  the  body,  informed  us  that  the  name  of  the  victim 
was  Marin,  of  Raduivatz,  that  he  belonged  to  the  first  company,  third  battalion,  thirteenth 


APPENDICES  361 

regiment,   second  reserve.     All  his  body  with  the   exception   of  the  heels   was   absolutely 
charred. 

There  are  other  equally  dreadful  facts.  The  Bulgars  in  many  cases  tore  out  the  eyes 
of  Servians  who  fell  into  their  hands. 

June  25,  1913.  Signed  by  four  members  of  the  commission,  three  officers  and  a  soldier, 
general  staff,  third  army. 

No.  3,665.    By  order,  Commandant  Chief-of-Staff, 

Colonel  Dushan  J.  Peshits. 
(Telegram  sent  from  Sokolartsi,  July  4.) 

9.  The  commandant  of  the  Danube  detachment  of  cavalry,  first  reserve,  tells  us  that 
one  of  the  men  killed  during  the  battle,  or  assassinated  after  it,  had  his  eyes  torn  out. 

Kosta  Petchanats,  second  regiment  of  infantry,  second  reserve,  reports  that  a  second 
lieutenant,  a  Bulgar,  judge  in  his  profession,  struck  a  wounded  soldier  on  the  head  with 
his  sword.  He  ordered  that  the  man's  hands  should  be  broken,  and  the  fingers  crushed 
between  stones.  Personally,  I  have  not  been  a  witness  to  a  single  one  of  these  cruelties. 
The  arbitration  doctor,  Dr.  Petrovits,  reports  the  preceding,  conforming  to  order  No.  7,569. 

By  order  of  the  Commandant, 

Dr.  Vladisavlievits. 
(Telegram  sent  from  Tsrni-Vrh,  July  9.) 

10.  Collected  July  24,   1913,   in   the   ambulance  offices   of  the   Danube   company,  first 
reserve  of  Konopnitsa: 

The  second  lieutenant  of  reserve,  first  company,  second  battalion,  seventh  infantry 
regiment,  second  reserve,  Mihailo  Stoyanovits,  just  brought  in  today  wounded,  reports  the 
following : 

On  June  21  during  the  battle,  I  was  struck  in  the  left  leg  and  heel,  by  a  ball. 
Unable  to  move,  I  had  to  stay  where  I  was.  Then  some  Bulgar  soldiers  came,  and 
two  of  them  began  to  rob  me.  They  took  from  me  a  leather  purse  containing  115 
francs,  a  watch  worth  forty-eight  francs,  a  leather  pouch,  an  amber  cigarholder,  an 
epaulette,  a  whistle,  a  box  of  matches,  my  cap  and  its  cockade.  Having  taken  all 
these,  they  made  ready  to  go,  but  one  of  them  said,  "Let  us  kill  him  now !"  Then 
he  sharpened  his  knife  against  his  gun  and  gave  me  three  gashes,  two  on  the  left, 
one  on  the  right.  The  other  gave  me  a  strong  blow  on  the  leg  and  in  the  right  ribs. 
A  third  Bulgar  came  up  and  hit  me  with  his  musket  in  the  chest.  Then  they  departed. 

Received  by  Lieut.  Colonel  Zarko  Trpkovits. 

II.    THE  MEDICAL  REPORTS 

1.  Proces-verbal  of  the  inquiry  concerning  the  body  of  Radomit  Arandjelovits, 
lieutenant-colonel  fourth  infantry  regiment  (supplementary)  killed  on  the  9th  instant, 
fighting  the  Bulgars  in  the  place  called  Velcki  Govedarmik. 

The  inquiry  took  place  under  the  porch  of  St.  Nicholas  church  at  Kumanovo,  in  the 
presence  of  the  district  prefect,  Mr.  Ranko-Trifunovits,  Mr.  Henri  Barby,  correspondent 
for  the  Paris  Journal,  Mr.  Kutchbach,  correspondent  of  the  Leipsiger  Zeitung  and  the 
Berliner  Tageblatt,  and  of  Dr.  Reverchon,  surgeon  at  the  military  hospital  of  Val-de-Grace 
at  Paris.  The  corpse  has  been  photographed. 

A.    External  Examination 

(1)  Body  measuring  1.87,  very  swollen  from  decomposition,  rigidity  of  death  absent, 
head  blackening,  greenish-yellow  from  decomposition. 


362  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

(2)  Right  ear  crushed,  superior  side,  disclosing  wound  about  two  cent,  in  diameter, 
with  irregular  edge.     Wound  has  penetrated  to  the  skull,  also  crushed  at  this  spot.     The 
wound  has  no  second  opening. 

(3)  The  head  almost  completely  bald,  the  few  remaining  hairs  fall  if  skin  is  touched. 

(4)  Below  the  right  eyebrow,  an  irregular  round  spot  about  seven  cent,  in  diameter, 
where  the  skin  has  dried  up,  beneath  it  traces  of  hemorrhage. 

(5)  On  the  line  of  the  third  rib,  left  side,  five  cent,  from  the  sternum,  an  oblique 
wound,  four  cent,  by  five  cent.,  edges  fine  and  clean,  soaked  with  blood ;  if  the  edges  of  the 
wound  are  cut,  a  flow  of  blood  in  the  pectoral  tissue  is  disclosed.     In  depth  this  wound 
extends  to  the  third  rib  which  is  crushed. 

(6)  Right,  two  cent,  below  the   elbow,  two  wounds  with  clean   fringed  edges,  three 
cent,  by  two  cent.     If  edge  is  cut  across,   signs  of  hemorrhage  beneath  the  skin.     Both 
wounds  connect  by  a  large  canal;  a  quantity  of  blood  in  the  tissue. 

(7)  Inferior  region  of  the  stomach,  four  cent,  below  the  symphysis,  one  cent,  to  the 
right  of  the  median  line,  an  opening  almost  circular,  with  flat  edges,  going  deep  into  the 
flesh.    Round  this  opening,  a  black  circle,  two  cent,  wide,  full  of  blood. 

Right  of  the  back,  below  the  eleventh  rib,  a  round  wound  one  cent,  in  width,  flat  edges, 
round  which  three  cent,  of  skin  have  dried  off,  showing  hemorrhage.  The  wound  penetrates 
to  the  eleventh  rib,  which  is  crushed.  Six  cent,  below  the  left  hip,  a  corresponding  wound. 

On  the  right  side  of  the  axis  of  the  back,  level  with  the  eighth  rib,  an  oblong  sore, 
one  by  one  and  one-half,  surrounded  by  a  black  ring,  in  which  section  reveals  hemorrhage. 
The  edges  crushed.  Left  side,  along  the  line  of  the  back,  beneath  the  omoplate,  a  wound 
more  or  less  round,  one  cent,  long,  going  deeply  into  the  flesh.  Fifteen  cent,  below,  another, 
level  with  the  thirteenth  rib. 

B.    Conclusions 

The  colonel  bears  traces  of  four  balls,  and  two  bayonets  and  daggers. 

Three  of  the  shots  have  been  fired  at  long  range,  causing  serious  wounds,  but  none 
of  them  mortal. 

The  fourth  ball,  fired  with  the  rifle,  or  more  likely  revolver,  directly  touching  the  ear, 
caused  grave  lesions  in  the  heart.  This  was  a  mortal  wound. 

The  two  bayonet  wounds  seem  to  have  been  made  by  one  blow. 

(a)  In  the  pericardiac  region,  a  violent  blow. 

(b)  In  the  forearm  at  the  height  of  the  third  rib. 

The  colonel's  right  arm  was  as  if  nailed  to  his  breast,  by  a  violent  bayonet  thrust. 
Scientifically  it  may  be  affirmed  that  the  colonel,  grievously  wounded  but  living,  was  killed 
by  a  shot  fired  close  to  his  head,  and  by  a  bayonet  thrust  in  his  heart. 

Kumanovo,  July  15/28,  1913. 

Signatures. 

2.  Proems-verbal  of  the  examination  held  in  the  place  where  nine  of  our  soldiers  are 
buried,  at  the  foot  and  behind  Talambas. 

Conforming  to  order  No.  2,501,  dated  July  14,  of  the  commandant  of  the  second  army,  a 
commission  came  today  to  examine  the  localities,  to  discover  signs  of  the  massacre  and 
mutilation  of  our  soldiers  of  Chuka  and  Gorina,  massacres  committed  by  the  Bulgars  upon 
those  of  our  wounded  who  fell  during  the  engagement  which  lasted  from  the  9th  to  the 
12th  instant,  and  who  were  unable  to  fight  in  retreat. 

At  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  order  was  given  to  exhume  nine  of  our  soldiers 
buried  at  the  foot  of  Talambas.  According  to  the  staff  surgeon  Yovan  Tsvakovits,  eight 


APPENDICES  363 

of  these  soldiers  had  been  buried  on  the  13th  instant,  and  another  on  the  14th.  After  the 
exhumation,  the  commission  examined  each  of  the  nine  corpses.  The  results  of  this 
examination  are  given  below : 

(a)  Swko  Tsvaits,  of  Ponora,  Nishavski  district,  department  of  Pirot,  soldier  of  the 
second  company,  second  battalion,  third  infantry  regiment,  third  reserve,  wounded  at  Chuka 
during  the  engagement  of  the  9th  instant,  has  the  following  wounds :   a  shot  in  the  left 
side,  two  fingers  below  the  line  of  the  abdomen  where  the  entrance  of  the  ball  may  be 
seen.    The  wound  traverses  the  muscles  and  comes  out  at  the  back. 

(b)  There  are  two  bayonet  wounds,  one  at  the  right  across  the  pupil  and  the  skin 
of  the  arch  of  the  left  eyebrow  to  the  forehead,  four  by  five,  the  second,  which  begins  at 
the  left  nostril,  cuts  across  the  whole  left  side  of  the  upper  lip  and  penetrates  the  mouth. 

(c)  Five  wounds.     All  the  left  side  of  the  head  scalped;  the  skin  of  the  cheek,  ear 
and  neck,  burnt;  burnt  hair  still  to  be  seen. 

Wound  (a)  was  not  mortal  and  could  have  been  cured;  (b)  and  (c)  mortal  and  of 
frightful  violence,  because  the  shot  fired  from  a  distance  made  the  man  incapable  of  self- 
defence.  So  the  wounds  (b)  and  (c)  must  have  been  made  at  very  close  range,  (b)  with 
a  military  knife,  (c)  by  setting  fire. 

Yanko  Milenovits,  of  Aldinats,  Zaglasvki  district,  department  of  Timok,  served  in 
the  third  company,  second  battalion,  third  infantry  regiment,  third  reserve.  Wounded  at 
Chuka  during  the  engagement  of  the  9th  instant.  The  following  wounds  were  found 
on  his  body: 

(a)  A  rifle  bullet  had  entered  the  middle   of  the   thigh,  had  broken  the   bone  and 
come  out  behind,  below  the  knee. 

(b)  A  wound  made  on  the  right  side,  outside  the  femur,  wound  ten  by  three.     Here 
the  skin  was  only  torn,  as  also  the  flesh  close  to  the  skin. 

(c)  Wound  of  the  gonar.     Torn  by  a  sharp  instrument,  wound  three  cent,  by  one- 
half  cut. 

(d)  Wounds  caused  by  the  butt  of  a  rifle  on  the  left  omoplate.     The  bruises  two 
cent.  wide.    Head  disfigured  by  blows  of  the  same  kind,  several  bones  of  the  skull  crushed. 

Wound  (a)  serious,  leaving  the  man  defenceless,  but  not  mortal,  (b)  a  wound  in- 
flicted violently  at  close  range,  (c)  a  violent  blow.  The  wounds  in  the  head  were  by  them- 
selves mortal,  and  had  killed  the  man. 

Milosar  Andjelkovits,  of  Gortchintsa,  Luinitcha  district,  Pirot  department,  served  in 
the  third  company,  second  battalion,  third  infantry  regiment,  third  reserve.  Fell  wounded 
during  the  Chuka  engagement,  on  the  9th  instant.  The  following  wounds  were  found 
on  him: 

(a)  On  the  lower  part  of  the  right  thigh,  in  front,  a  wound  three  by  five.    The  bone 
not  reached.    It  is  possible  that  this  wound  was  caused  by  a  ball  from  a  gun  or  by  shrapnel. 

(b)  Burns;  the  right  half  of  the  head  burnt,  as  well  as  the  hair  and  skin  of  the  left 
cheek,  nose  and  eye  torn  out. 

Wound  (a)  was  not  mortal,  and  could  have  been  cicatriced,  but  it  prevented  the  man 
from  making  any  movement.  The  other  injury  (b)  was  inflicted  after  (a)  and  must 
have  been  violent. 

Peisha  Stankovits,  of  Velcki  Boninats,  Luinitchki  district,  Pirot  department,  serving 
in  the  third  company,  second  battalion,  third  infantry  regiment,  third  reserve,  wounded 
during  the  Chuka  engagement,  9th  instant.  The  following  wounds  were  found  on  him : 

(a)  Below  the  omoplate,  in  front,  a  wound  \l/2  by  I1/*,  with  no  second  issue.     This 
wound  could  have  been  caused  by  a  ball  from  a  rifle  of  powerful  calibre,  or  by  shrapnel. 
This  wound  prevented  the  man  from  moving. 

(b)  About  four  fingers  above  the  right  eyebrow  going  towards  the  right,  across  the 


364  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

whole  head,  a  deep  wound,  ten  by  one,  touching  the  brain,  the  skull  being  crushed.     This 
wound  was  produced  by  a  violent  blow  with  some  blunt  instrument,  and  was  mortal. 

Stanko  Dimitrievits,  of  Linova,  Luinitchki  district,  Pirot  department,  served  in  the 
third  company,  second  battalion,  third  infantry  regiment,  third  reserve,  was  wounded  in  the 
Chuka  engagement,  9th  instant.  The  following  wounds  were  observed : 

(a)  On  the  right  femur,  a  wound  caused  by  a  gun  cartridge,  with  an  issue  twelve 
cent,  lower  down.    This  wound  was  slight,  only  the  muscle  being  touched,  but  it  prevented 
any  movement. 

(b)  The  skull  nearly  entirely  crushed,  even  the  part  above  the  brain  knocked  out;  it 
may  be  inferred  that  this  wound  was   caused  by  the  butt  of   a  gun  or   similar   weapon 
because  the  edges  of  the  wound  were  stuck  with  scraps  of  bone  and  scraps  of  skin. 

There  was  no  trace  of  wounds  caused  by  violence  on  the  other  four  bodies  which  had 
been  exhumed. 

After  the  examination,  it  was  unfortunately  impossible  to  get  good  photographs  of  the 
bodies,  on  account  of  the  fog  and  rain.  It  was  attempted,  but  without  success. 

In  conclusion,  I  may  be  permitted  to  state  that  we  have  learned  from  the  commandant 
of  the  Talambas  section,  the  doctor  Major  Yovan  Tsvetkovits,  and  Yovan  Popovits, 
chaplain  of  the  third  regiment  of  infantry,  third  reserve,  that  the  persons  1,  2,  3,  4,  5, 
remained  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy  during  our  retreat. 

Signatures. 

The  whole  of  this  Proces-verbal  has  been  translated  into  German  before  being  signed, 
and  submitted  to  the  doctor  of  the  Swiss  mission,  Lieut.  Colonel  Doctor  Yervin,  who  signed 
the  German  text. 

Talambas,  July  15/28,  1913. 

III.    DESTRUCTION  OF  TOWNS  AND  VILLAGES 

General  Staff,  Third  Army. 
Telegram  from  Sokolartsi,  No.  4,137,  Uskub,  July  21,  1913,  to  the  general  staff: 

I  have  received  from  the  commandant  of  the  Moravian  division,  second  reserve,  the 
following  report,  No.  2,427,  dated  20th  instant : 

1.  The  villages  of  Kletovo,  Tursko,  Rudare,  Neokazi,  Bunesh,  Raitchani,  Spantchevo, 
Gorantse,  Rotchane,  Oridare,  Grdovtse,  Yakimova,  Vinitsa,  Vsti  Bania  and  Tsrni  Kamen, 
are  almost  all  burnt,  and  the  houses  are  in  ruins.     All  property  has  been   destroyed  or 
robbed,  so  much  so  that  the  fugitives  returning  to  their  villages  find  nothing  there.     All 
this  has  been  occasioned  by  the  Bulgars,  in  the  course  of  their  retreat. 

2.  All  the  Moslem  population  who  succeeded  in  escaping  from  the  Bulgar  swords  and 
bullets,  have  fled  into  the  mountains.    They  are  returning  now,  little  by  little,  to  the  ruins 
of  their  former  domiciles.    The  Christian  population,  which  was  not  able  to  withdraw  with 
the  Bulgar  army,  fled  into  the  woods  and  mountains  also,  and  is  beginning  to  return  in 
the  same  way. 

3.  All  the  crops  which  were  almost  ripe  have  been  destroyed  or  burnt  or  trampled 
down.    Certain  foods,  such  as  flour,  were  soaked  in  petrol  by  the  Bulgars. 

4.  They  robbed  and  killed  our  wounded,  and  left  others  to  die  of  starvation  on  the 
battlefield.     The  bodies  of  those  massacred  were  left  to   rot,   although  they  were   in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  Bulgars.    These  things  were  reported  to  the  Bulgar  officers  when 
our  line  of  demarcation  was  fixed. 

5.  Lieut.-Colonel  Kosta  Mihailovits,  who  was  killed  on  the  llth  and  remained  on  the 
battlefield,  was  robbed  by  the  Bulgars,  who  first  stole  his  money  and  everything  he  had 
about  him,  then  all  his  clothing.     He  was  found  thus  despoiled,  on  the  18th,  and  buried 
by  our  soldiers. 


APPENDICES  365 

When  the  Bulgar  officers  were  asked  why  they  had  not  buried  our  dead  officers  and 
soldiers,  they  replied  that  it  was  because  of  the  fire  from  the  Servians.  When  they  were 
asked  how  they  could  rob  and  despoil  the  dead,  they  replied  sometimes  that  it  had  not 
been  done  by  the  Bulgars,  sometimes  that  it  was  impossible. 

6.  Second  Lieutenant  Bogin,  a  Bulgar,  who  was  taken  prisoner  by  the  third  regiment 
of  infantry,  at  Zletovo  River,  killed  Dragits  Valjarevits,  one  of  the  second  company,  second 
battalion  of  the  second  regiment.     He  has  acknowledged  it  himself  and  his  bloodstained 
sword  is  in  the  possession  of  the  second  regiment. 

7.  On  the  6th  after  the  engagement  of  Kalimanska  Tchouka,  the  wounded   Servians 
who   remained   in   the   village   of  Doulitsa,   were  cut   with   knives.     Their   ears   and   noses 
were  cut  off  and  their  eyes  torn  out  by  the  Bulgar  officers  and  soldiers.     A  gunner,  Rasha 
Nilitchevits,  had  his  two  hands  cut  off  and  died  as  the  result. 

The  preceding  is  reported  conformably  to  the  order  No.  41,111  of  the  20th  instant. 

By  order  of  the  Commandant, 

Chief  Aide  General  Staff, 
Lieut.  Col.  Mil.  G.  Milovanovits. 

DESTRUCTION  OF  KNJAZEVAC 
Official  Servian  Report 

Prefecture  of  the  Timok  Department, 

No.  4,363,  July  3,  1913.    Zaietchar. 
To  the  Minister  of  the  Interior : 

Conformably  to  instructions  received  by  telephone  from  the  government  office,  on  the 
29th  of  last  month,  I  left  for  Knjazevac  on  the  30th  of  last  month,  at  six  o'clock  in 
the  evening. 

.From  Zaietchar,  as  far  as  the  road  which  breaks  off  before  Vratanitza  in  the  direction 
of  Grlishte,  nothing  is  altered,  because  the  Bulgar  army  did  not  pass  beyond  this  limit. 
If  the  road  is  followed  in  the  direction  of  Vratanitza,  the  common  tomb  of  seven  of  our 
men  of  the  third  reserve,  is  to  be  seen.  These  men  were  found  dead  outside  of  the  town 
hall,  after  the  Bulgar  army  had  left  the  village.  They  were  buried  by  the  authorities. 
They  bore  no  wounds  made  by  bullets,  but  had  been  wounded  by  bayonet  thrusts  and  rifle 
butts.  They  were  prisoners  taken  by  the  Bulgars  and  put  to  death  when  the  latter  had  to 
beat  a  retreat  on  the  26th  of  last  month. 

The  identity  of  the  victims  could  not  be  established,  but  it  can  be  seen  from  their 
clothing,  that  six  of  them  were  from  the  department  of  Kramski,  and  the  other  from  the 
vicinity  of  Paratchin.  All  that  could  be  transported  was  carried  away  from  the  two  inns 
at  Vratanitza.  What  remained  was  broken,  or  damaged,  or  smashed  to  pieces.  All  the 
houses  in  the  village  were  sacked.  I  notice  that  a  great  number  of  houses  on  the  line  of 
march  had  their  windows  and  doors  broken,  so  that  the  owners  now  have  to  fasten  them 
with  cords. 

Chaos  reigns  in  the  inn  at  Mali-Izvor,  which  is  on  the  line  of  march.  Chairs  and 
some  tables,  mirrors  and  pictures  and  pottery  are  broken,  and  in  the  bedrooms  the  same 
disorder  and  devastation  is  to  be  seen.  The  hangings,  mattresses  and  all  the  bedclothes 
have  been  carried  away.  The  other  things  have  been  torn  up  and  flung  into  disorder. 
All  the  drinks  were  consumed  on  the  premises  or  carried  away.  Most  of  the  haystacks 
were  stolen,  two  were  burnt.  On  the  road  between  Mali-Izvor  and  Kralievo  Selo  the  crops 
were  trampled  down  as  if  the  soldiers  had  camped  there. 

At  Kralievo  Selo,  in  the  city  hall  of  the  district,  where  there  were  besides  the  offices, 
the  private  rooms  of  the  police  officials  and  the  district  doctor,  nothing  can  be  seen  but 


366  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

destruction.  All  the  papers  have  been  thrown  to  the  winds,  many  of  them  torn  up.  The 
district  safe  is  on  the  floor,  smashed  to  bits. 

In  the  apartments  of  the  prefect  and  the  doctor,  everything  has  been  broken  and 
destroyed  and  flung  about  in  a  way  that  defies  description.  The  doctor's  medicine  chest 
has  been  completely  destroyed.  The  state  of  affairs  in  the  house  of  Jivoin,  the  priest,  is 
equally  dreadful.  The  linen,  the  best  of  the  clothing,  and  the  hangings  have  all  been 
carried  away.  The  rest  of  the  things  have  been  broken  and  destroyed,  to  such  an  extent 
that  nothing  remains  which  could  be  used.  At  the  priest's  house,  as  at  the  city  hall,  even 
the  ovens  have  not  been  left  in  their  places,  but  are  taken  to  pieces  and  broken.  I  visited 
several  other  houses  of  Kralievo  Selo,  and  everywhere  I  found  the  same  thing. 

Violent  acts  were  committed  in  the  neighboring  villages  of  Selatchka,  Novo-Korito, 
Nrenovats  and  Vrbitsu.  The  wooden  bridge  was  set  on  fire  and  completely  burnt,  as  well 
as  the  bridge  across  the  Jeleshnitza  river,  on  the  great  road  from  Kralievo  Selo  to 
Knjazevac,  near  the  village  of  Jeleshnitza.  Under  all  these  bridges,  the  Bulgars  had 
piled  up  the  tables,  chairs,  cupboards,  and  other  wooden  objects  taken  from  the  city  hall. 
They  were  sprinkled  with  gasoline  and  set  on  fire. 

The  barracks  of  the  fourteenth  regiment  of  infantry  were  near  the  entrance  to 
Knjazevac,  on  the  left  of  the  main  road.  They  consisted  of  four  pavilions,  of  a  two- 
story  edifice  with  other  lateral  buildings.  Hayfields  were  close  beside  the  barracks.  These 
were  set  on  fire  and,  as  a  result,  three  of  the  pavilions  and  the  two-story  building  were 
destroyed  by  fire  too.  One  pavilion  only,  had  nothing  but  the  interior,  the  door,  and  the 
windows  destroyed.  A  great  many  rifles  were  burnt. 

All  the  ammunition  found  in  the  barracks  was  collected  and  carried  to  where  the  new 
iron  bridge  was  above  the  Tzgovishki  Timok,  at  the  entrance  to  the  city.  The  soil  beneath 
the  bridge  was  dug  out  and  mines  were  laid,  which  were  exploded  by  means  of  electricity. 
The  bridge  was  blown  into  the  air,  and  its  iron  framework  completely  destroyed.  The 
greater  quantity  of  the  ammunition  which  did  not  explode  was  thrown  into  the  river, 
from  which  it  is  now  being  retrieved  and  dried. 

Upon  entering  Knjazevac,  from  both  sides  of  the  lower  town,  and  on  the  street 
as  well  that  crosses  the  river  and  leads  to  the  post-office,  several  burnt  houses  and  shops 
may  be  seen.  Everything  was  completely  destroyed  by  fire,  but  the  ruins  still  remain. 
Twenty-six  houses  and  twenty  proprietors  were  ruined  in  this  way. 

As  far  as  private  houses  go  (I  visited  personally  about  fifty  shops  and  houses),  I 
can  assert  briefly,  that  not  one  was  spared.  Everyone  was  entered  and  pillaged  more  or 
less.  All  the  private  safes  were  broken  open ;  the  Bulgars  searched  everywhere  for  money, 
and  stole  whatever  they  found.  Not  a  drawer  or  box  remained,  that  was  not  forced  open. 
It  is  amazing  what  they  were  able  to  do  in  so  short  a  time,  when  it  is  recalled  that  there 
were  only  10,000  of  them,  or  at  least  so  the  inhabitants  think. 

The  shops  suffered  the  most.  All  that  could  not  actually  be  carried  away,  was  torn 
and  destroyed  and  messed.  All  the  debris  are  scattered  about  and  you  sink  up  to  your 
knees  in  it.  Wherever  they  could  find  any  sort  of  liquor,  the  Bulgars  drank  it  or  carried 
it  off.  Now  you  could  not  find  even  a  small  glass  of  cognac,  in  all  Knjazevac. 

According  to  international  law,  private  property  should  be  respected  during  war,  more 
especially  in  towns  which  are  not  protected,  which  was  the  case  with  Knjazevac.  The 
Bulgars  absolutely  defied  this  principle,  and  plundered  private  property  everywhere.  What 
they  could  not  eat  or  drink,  they  destroyed.  In  certain  places  they  poured  petrol  over  the 
flour,  corn  and  other  provisions.  Mr.  Kutcher's  dispensary  and  his  house  offer  the  most 
deplorable  spectacle  of  Bulgar  vandalism.  The  foreign  correspondents  who  came  as  far 
as  this  town,  have  certainly  found  something  to  look  at  They  have  taken  any  number 
of  photographs  of  the  traces  of  the  Bulgar  invasion.  In  short,  it  is  difficult  to  describe 
the  devastation  of  private  property  in  Knjazevac,  more  especially  in  an  official  report  of 
this  kind,  as  an  entire  book  would  not  suffice. 


APPENDICES  367 

The  damage  to  the  principal  buildings  is  given  below : 

1.  District  Offices.     The  damage  is  considerable.     The   Bulgars  pillaged  the  criminal 
section,  various  documents  were  torn  up,  or  misplaced  in  other  offices.     Some  were  even 
found  among  the  ruins  of  the  bridge  over  the  Timok.     The  Bureau  des  Depots  was  searched 
and  the  district  safe  broken  open.     The   instruments   used   for   this  purpose   were   found 
beside  the  safe.    The  typewriter  was  broken,  and  all  the  cupboard  drawers  smashed. 

2.  Office  of  Taxes.    Only  the  documents  found  in  the  office  of  the  chief  of  the  depart- 
ment were  destroyed  or  carried  away.     The  rest  were  left.    All  the  bottles  of  ink  were 
thrown  against  the  walls,  and  many  of  the  books  were  soaked  in  ink.    The  Bulgar  soldiers 
and  non-commissioned  officers  had  covered  them  with  signatures,  or  coarse  remarks. 

3.  Post  and  Telegraph  Offices.    These  suffered  more  than  any  other  public  building. 
All  the  telegraphic  and  telephonic  apparatus   was  destroyed,   either  twisted   or  broken   in 
pieces.     The  four  safes  were  broken.    All  the  postal  packets  were  opened  and  the  contents 
stolen  or  scattered. 

4.  Artillery  Barracks.    These  buildings  have  not  suffered,  but  a  great  deal  of  public 
supplies,  linen,  quilts,  boots,  were  carried  away.     Xanatchko  T.  Tsveits,  a  manufacturer  of 
arms,  retired  from  business,  who  was  slightly  deaf,  was  killed  by  the  Bulgars.     They  said 
they  killed  him  because  he  did  not  retire  quickly  enough  to  the  roadside  when  they  called 
behind  him  to  do  so.    According  to  news  received  by  telephone,  the  commission  of  doctors, 
at    Knjazevac,    saw   twenty   women    who    had    been    assaulted   in   the    neighboring   villages, 
and  at  Kralievo  Selo,  three  of  them  were  brought  before  the  commission.    It  was  absolutely 
impossible  to  bring  all  the  violated  women  before  the  doctors  in  so  short  a  time,  chiefly 
because  most  of  them  keep  themselves   hidden,   and  because  the  parents   in  view  of  the 
future,  are  ashamed  to  speak  of  their  injured  daughters  and  try  to  hide  their  dishonor. 

Commission  Report 

Addressed  to  the  Commandant  of  the  Timok  Division. 

Mr.  Jacob  Osipits  Kapoustine,  a  Russian  who  had  taken  a  long  cure  at  Soko  Mania, 
visited  Knjazevac  after  the  Bulgar  pillage,  to  inspect  the  results,  and  he  has  placed  his 
notes  at  my  disposition.  I  add  them  to  the  rest.  The  damage  suffered  by  the  district 
on  account  of  the  pillage,  amounts  to  about  twenty-five  or  thirty  million  francs.  Agricul- 
ture suffered  especially. 

The  Prefect  of  the  Military  Post, 

Jov.  S.  Miletits. 

Thanks  to  the  courtesy  of  the  prefect  of  Soko  Mania,  I  was  able  to  leave  early  in 
the  morning  of  June  28  to  visit  the  town  of  Knjazevac  with  him,  devastated  by  Bulgar 
vandals.  At  Ichastantsi,  about  three  kilometers  distance  from  Knjazevac,  I  heard  of 
violent  acts  committed  by  the  Bulgars  in  the  neighboring  villages. 

Accompanied  by  a  notable  of  Knjazevac,  I  at  once  set  about  verifying  these  reports. 
I  ascertained  as  follows : 

For  three  days  the  Bulgars  in  detachments  of  fifteen  or  twenty,  went  through  the 
villages,  pillaging  houses  and  buildings,  searching  for  money  and  taking  all  they  could 
find,  even  to  fifty  centime  pieces,  and  outraging  women,  no  matter  what  their  age  or 
condition.  Thus,  in  the  village  of  Bulinovats,  seven  women,  two  only  sixteen  years  old, 
were  violated;  at  Vina,  nine  women — one  pregnant — at  Statina  five  women,  one  a  girl 
of  thirteen. 

It  was  difficult  to  discover  the  names,  the  people  shrinking  ashamed  from  giving  them. 

Having  ascertained  all  these  facts,  I  left  for  Knjazevac.  When  I  arrived  there,  my 
first  impression  was  that  it  had  the  appearance  of  an  ordinary  town.  If  it  had  not  been 


368  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

for  the  nine  or  ten  edifices  destroyed  by  fire  and  the  wooden  bridges  half  burnt  down,  1 
should  never  have  guessed  that  only  a  few  days  before,  the  enemy  had  passed  through  it. 
Because  of  that,  the  interior  aspect  of  the  houses,  shops  and  courtyards,  when  I  saw  them, 
seemed  to  me  the  more  stupefying. 

I  entered  a  hundred  houses,  and  in  each  I  saw  the  same  spectacle.  It  was  the  result 
of  no  ordinary  pillage,  but  of  something  much  more  shocking.  All  the  mirrors  were  broken, 
for  example,  all  the  cupboards,  drawers,  boxes,  furniture,  everything  wooden,  had  been 
chopped  to  pieces  with  a  hatchet.  The  doors  were  smashed.  The  upholstery  was  torn  off 
the  chairs  and  sofas,  and  scattered  about  the  room.  The  photographs  had  been  torn 
into  little  bits  and  the  books  destroyed.  All  the  men's  clothing  had  been  taken,  and 
disgusting  uniforms  left  in  its  place.  All  the  women's  clothing  had  been  deliberately  torn, 
so  had  the  curtains,  bed  linen  and  dish  cloths.  They  were  flung  about  everywhere,  covered 
with  excrement,  and  in  some  cases  soaked  in  petrol. 

In  the  shops,  it  was  the  same  thing.  The  most  valuable  things  had  been  carried  off, 
and  such  confusion  made  of  the  rest  that  it  was  impossible  to  distinguish  the  objects. 
Everything  had  been  done  with  the  express  purpose  of  destroying  all  that  could  not  be 
carried  away.  For  example,  the  sugar  and  sweets  had  been  thrown  down  the  closets  or 
covered  with  paint  and  the  flour  had  been  soaked  in  petrol. 

In  the  course  of  the  search  for. money,  all  the  safes  had  been  blown  up  with  dynamite. 
But  the  most  dreadful  sight  of  all  was  the  pharmacy.  Not  a  bottle  or  jar  remained  whole. 
The  bandages  and  lint  had  been  set  on  fire,  then  spread  over  the  floor,  which  was  in  a 
state  of  indescribable  dirt  and  chaos.  They  had  mixed  up  all  the  drugs,  and  the  deleterious 
gases  from  them,  made  it  dangerous  to  remain  long  in  the  place. 

Eye  witnesses  assert  that  the  Bulgars  insisted  on  entering  the  officers'  and  soldiers' 
houses  and  devastating  them  in  a  horrible  way.  The  Bulgar  army,  after  three  days  at 
Knjazevac,  reached  such  a  pitch  of  demoralization  (on  account  of  the  wine  taken  from 
all  the  cellars)  that  an  entire  battalion  had  to  be  disarmed  and  conducted  by  a  strong 
escort  outside  the  town.  There  is  some  talk  also  of  cruelty  inflicted  upon  little  boys,  but 
I  had  too  short  a  time  in  the  town,  to  confirm  these  rumors. 

Jacob  Osipits  Kapoustine, 

Russian  subject. 

IV.    BULGARIAN  DOCUMENTS 
Depositions  of  Bulgarian  Refugees  at  Kustendil 

1.     Village  of  Sletovo.     (Canton  Kratovo.) 

Twenty-four  families  from  Sletovo  fled  to  Kustendil,  seventy-six  persons  in  all,  twenty- 
five  men,  eighteen  women  and  thirty-three  children.  In  the  month  of  March,  the  Servians 
began  molesting  the  people ;  they  did  not  allow  the  villagers  to  meet  together,  to  go  to 
the  neighboring  villages  or  to  the  mill,  or  even  to  work  in  the  fields.  Under  diverse  pre- 
texts they  began  collecting  money.  The  priest  Hadji  pop  Constantinov  was  ordered  by 
the  officer  Rankovits  to  pronounce  the  name  of  King  Peter  and  the  Metropolitan  of  Bel- 
grade at  mass,  and  he  submitted.  One  evening  two  policemen  took  the  priest  to  the 
convent  of  Lesnovo  to  a  room  with  a  deacon;  he  found  there  Rankovits  and  another 
officer.  Turning  to  the  priest  Rankovits  said  to  him  brutally,  "Why  do  you  not  pronounce 
the  names  of  King  Peter  and  the  Metropolitan  of  Belgrade  at  the  church?"  Seizing  him 
by  the  beard,  he  drew  his  sword  and  threatened  to  massacre  him. 

The  priest  was  let  go,  but  foreseeing  he  could  not  go  on  living  with  the  Servians,  fled 
to  Kotchani  and  thence  to  Kustendil.  After  his  flight  the  authorities  sacked  his  house 
and  carried  off  his  wife,  his  two  sons,  Trifound  aged  seven  and  Lazar,  one  and  a  half, 
and  his  two  daughters,  Victoria,  seventeen,  and  Stoika,  one.  No  one  knows  where  they 


APPENDICES  369 

were  sent;  it  was  said  that  they  were  massacred.    The  other  villagers  fled  because  their 
houses  had  been  burned  and  laid  waste. 

The  Dolna  quarter  at  Sletovo  was  entirely  burnt  on  July  13/26  by  the  Servian  soldiery 
and  many  families  were  carried  off.  We  may  mention  one  or  two:  The  priest  Hadji  pop 
Constantinov,  Slavtcho  Abazov  (two  houses  and  a  bakery  burnt  and  his  family  carried 
off  as  hostages)  ;  Ivan  Stoikov  (his  house  was  burnt)  ;  Sazdo  Natzev  and  Miche  Sredzima 
(their  houses  were  burnt)  ;  Pantcho  Dimitrov  and  Vassil  Domaset  (their  families  taken 
as  hostages);  Mite  Bassoto  (his  shop  was  sacked),  etc. 

The  families  of  all  volunteers  in  the  war  against  Turkey  were  carried  away,  no  one 
knew  whither,  their  houses  laid  waste  and  burned.  Here  again  one  or  two  may  be  given. 
Stefan  Pavlov  (his  wife  and  children  were  taken  prisoners)  ;  Stanko  Gheorghiev  (his  two 
boys  and  his  girl  suffered  the  same  fate)  ;  Kole  Dossev  (his  wife  and  children  the  same)  ; 
Arso  Domeset  (his  family  the  same)  :  Stoyan  Ivanov  (the  same).  In  a  word  there  was 
no  refugee  who  did  not  suffer  from  the  Servian  soldiery. 

In  the  flight  from  Kustendil,  many  persons  were  worn  out  with  fatigue  and  had  to  be 
abandoned  on  the  way.  Thus  Basdo  Petrov  left  his  brother,  his  wife  and  his  children  at 
the  Pantaley  convent;  Naoun  Yakov  left  his  wife  and  his  three  children  at  the  village  of 
Nifithitchani.  The  two  brothers  Strache  and  Stoyan  Phillipov  saw  their  father  disappear 
near  the  Pantaley  convent. 

2.  Village  of  Globets.     (Kratovo.) 

Kotze  Lasarov,  being  an  ancient  comitadji,  was  persecuted  by  the  Servians.  He  was 
threatened  with  death  and  therefore  resolved  on  flight.  He  took  with  him  his  family, 
consisting  of  two  women,  three  men  and  three  children,  because  he  knew  that  the  Servian 
officials  imprisoned  the  families  of  the  refugees  and  outraged  their  women. 

After  walking  fifteen  days  over  mountains  and  streams  the  family  arrived  at  Kustendil. 
They  are  now  living  at  the  asylum  of  Mina.  On  their  departure  the  Servians  sacked 
everything.  The  brother  and  son-in-law  of  Kotze  remained  in  the  village.  The  village  of 
Spantchevo  is  said  to  have  been  burned  by  the  Servians,  the  mayor  and  the  priest  killed, 
and  many  women  outraged.  At  the  village  of  Koutchitchino  the  men  were  imprisoned  and 
their  wives  outraged  by  the  Servian  soldiers.  The  daughter  of  Alix  Hadjiev,  Sletovo, 
was  outraged  and  died.  A  Wallachian,  Georghi  Steriov,  was  killed. 

3.  Vinitza.     (Kotchani.) 

The  Servian  troops  occupied  Vinitza  about  two  o'clock  on  June  24.  On  their  entry  the 
soldiers  began  breaking  the  doors  of  the  houses  and  seizing  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
village,  men,  women  and  children.  The  Turkish  population  was  not  molested,  since  the 
Servian  soldiers  behaved  perfectly  to  the  Turks.  After  collecting  the  peasants  the  soldiers 
made  them  stand  in  rows  and  began  questioning  them  one  after  the  other,  asking  whether 
they  were  Bulgarians  or  Servians.  Anyone  who  dared  to  say  he  was  a  Bulgarian  was 
cruelly  beaten.  The  largest  number  of  blows  was  received  by  Gherassim  Arsov.  This 
done,  the  commander  of  the  troops  chose  out  seventy  peasants,  ranged  them  in  a  line  and 
gave  the  order  for  them  to  be  shot.  The  women  and  children  who  were  near  began  to 
cry  out,  to  weep  and  to  entreat.  A  horseman  carrying  an  order  arrived  before  the  shooting 
began  and  the  commander  changing  his  mind,  the  seventy  peasants  were  sent  to  Kotchani. 
Their  fate  is  unknown.  On  June  27,  the  Bulgarian  troops  advanced  and  the  Servians 
retired  from  the  village.  On  the  same  day  the  Bulgarians  left  the  village,  the  Servians 
took  their  place.  Thereupon  the  whole  population,  maddened  with  terror  by  the  prospect 
of  new  tortures,  took  flight.  Only  the  old  people  remained  in  the  village.  All  the  refugees 
went  to  Kustendil,  passing  by  Tzarevo-Selo. 


370  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

On  the  way  there  died  Sokolitza,  the  son  of  Vladimir  Panov,  aged  fifteen,  and  the 
child  of  Yourdan  Gotchev,  who  died  at  the  age  of  three  in  the  Bulgarian  village  of 
Tzarvaritza. 

At  Vinitza,  the  Servian  soldiers  pillaged  all  the  shops  and  all  the  houses. 

The  names  of  some  of  the  inhabitants  of  Vinitza  whose  shops  were  sacked  are: 
Gherassim  Arsov,  Palikrouchev,  Lazar  Christov,  Yane  Dinov,  Spiro  Koujinkov,  Vassil 
Vessinkov,  Mito  Todorov,  Gheorghi  Donev,  Kotze  Arsov,  Thodor  Ivanov.  But  fifty  or 
sixty  victims  of  pillage  might  be  cited. 

In  the  same  village  of  Vinitza,  the  Servians  put  to  death  Nicolas  Athanasov  and  Stoyan 
Vodenitcharov.  The  father,  aged  eighty,  and  the  mother  of  Todor  Ivanov,  were  put  in  a 
barrel  and  rolled  up  and  down  by  the  Servian  soldiers,  who  did  not  let  them  out  until  they 
paid  ten  louis  d'or.  Marie  Arsova  was  also  tortured  by  the  soldiers  to  extract  money  from 
her.  Anna  Kosteva,  Toevitza.  Mitka  Palena  and  other  women  were  outraged. 

(Another  deposition.) 

When  the  Bulgarian  troops  left  Kotchani  and  Vinitza,  Servian  cavalry  were  said  to  be 
approaching  the  latter  village.  All  the  inhabitants  were  terror  struck.  Many  peasants  hid 
themselves  in  their  houses ;  others,  more  numerous,  fled  towards  the  Bulgarian  frontier. 
Mitko  Arsov  remained  in  his  house  to  collect  some  goods,  while  his  wife  and  his  five 
children  joined  the  band  of  fugitives.  On  the  morrow,  Arsov  caught  the  band  up  and  said 
that  the  Servian  troops  had  seized  and  taken  away  sixty  to  seventy  peasants.  He  himself 
was  tortured  and  cruelly  beaten  by  a  Servian  soldier  who  asked  him  for  money.  He  would 
have  been  killed  if  a  Turk  whom  he  knew  had  not  happened  to  ask  him  to  restore  him  to 
liberty.  Set  free,  he  fled  during  the  night  and  caught  up  the  group  of  fugitives,  but  four 
or  five  days  later  he  died,  worn  out  by  the  blows  and  torture  he  had  endured.  It  is  said 
that  his  brother,  Sando  Arsov,  was  dragged  away  and  maltreated  by  the  Servians,  who 
sought  to  compel  him  to  betray  where  the  peasants  were  hidden.  He  went  mad  with  terror 
and  was  left  alone.  After  wandering  for  a  long  time  in  the  solitudes  of  Mount  Brigla, 
he  died  of  hunger  and  fatigue. 

On  the  bridge  of  Vinitza  itself,  the  Servian  troops  massacred  Georghie  Kovats,  his 
wife  Nata  and  their  children,  Todor,  seven,  Vassa,  thirteen,  and  Lazar,  a  year  and  a 
half  old. 

4.    Blatetz.     (Notchani.) 

The  Servian  troops  occupied  the  village  of  Blatetz  on  July  1.  The  soldiers  began  their 
excesses  immediately  on  their  entry;  they  were  assisted  by  the  Turkish  population  of  the 
place,  who  took  part  in  all  the  outrages,  pillage  and  massacres  committed  by  the  Servians, 
and  were  spared  by  them  on  account  of  their  complicity. 

Thus,  for  example,  Turks  denounced  the  suspected  Bulgarians  to  the  Servian  soldiers.1 
Twenty  persons  were  immediately  imprisoned  and  then,  aided  by  the  Turks,  the  Servian 
soldiers  entered  the  houses.  All  the  Bulgarian  houses  were  rifled,  not  even  the  windows  and 
the  door  being  left;  they  were  carried  off  by  the  Turks  and  used  by  them  in  their  own 
houses.  After  this  regular  pillage  the  Servians  burned  the  quarters  (Mahalas)  called 
"Samardjinska,"  "Vatchkovska,"  "Dulgherska,"  and  the  school  of  St.  Cyril  and  St.  Methodius. 
The  following  are  the  names  of  some  peasants  whose  houses  were  burnt.  Athanase 
Petzov,  Konstandi  Damianov,  the  priest  Pavle  Dimitrov,  Philippe  Petrov,  Trandaphil 


read  in  another  deposition,  "The  Turks  pointed  out  to  the  Servians  those  who 
were  or  who  were  believed  to  be  rich.  A  young  boy  called  Dane  had  his  eyes  gouged  out 
to  compel  him  to  say  where  his  people's  money  was.  Another,  Alexa,  was  burned  alive 
for  the  same  reason.  Some  fifteen  houses  were  burnt." 


APPENDICES 


371 


Stoytchev,  Ivan  Gheorchev,  Pafle  Kostov,  Yordan  Kostov,  Simeon  Damianov,  Erotei  Da- 
mianov,  Ivan  Anatonov,  Bogdan  Antov,  Cavril  Antov,  Grigor  Bogdanov,  Zaphir  Bogdanov, 
Yani,  Christo  and  Seraphim  Petzov,  etc. 

The  Servian  officers  decided  to  kill  the  Bulgarians  who  had  been  taken.  All  the  pris- 
oners were  accordingly  led  outside  the  village.  Then  a  halt  was  called  and  one  of  the 
officers  shouted  to  the  wretched  people :  "Save  himself,  who  can."  While  they  were 
going  away  the  Servian  soldiers  fired  upon  them  and  all  the  Bulgarians  were  killed.  One 
man  alone,  Zaphir  Traitchov  Klukachki,  succeeded  in  escaping,  but  not  without  being 
wounded;  a  finger  was  carried  off  by  a  bullet.  For  several  days  he  wandered  in  the  forest 
and  then  came  back  to  the  village.  Another  Bulgarian,  Done  Temovski  had  his  face 
mutilated;  after  tearing  his  eyes  out  they  killed  him.  Alexo  Tomev  was  thrown  alive  into 
the  fire  and  burnt. 

The  following  are  the  names  of  the  peasants  who  were  shot  by  the  Servian  soldiers:1 
Triphon  Mitrev,  aged  fifty-two,  his  wife  and  his  child  aged  three;  Anghel  Miretchev,  aged 
forty-six,  his  wife  and  his  daughter;  Nicolas  Lazorov,  forty-eight,  who  leaves  a  widow  and 
three  children;  Simeon  Stoimenov,  nineteen,  scholar  at  the  Pedagogic  school  of  Uskub 
(third  course),  he  was  in  bed  sick,  but  was  dragged  out  by  force;  Ivan  Zahov,  forty-two, 
who  leaves  a  widow  and  three  children ;  Pavle  Sinadinov,  nineteen,  who  leaves  a  widow ; 
Andon  Sinadinov,  sixty-five,  his  daughter,  Paraskeva  Andonova,  a  governess  and  one  of 
the  refugees  is  now  in  Sofia;  Vladimir  Avksentiev,  thirty,  who  leaves  a  father,  a  mother — 
a  widow — and  two  children,  destitute;  Athanasius  Yanakoev,  seventy,  who  leaves  two  sons 
and  two  grandsons;  Mite  Gheorghiev,  thirty-five,  who  leaves  a  wife  and  two  children; 
Danial  Petzov,  fifty,  who  leaves  a  wife. 

Before  they  were  killed  all  these  wretched  people  saw  their  goods  pillaged  and  carried 
off.  Their  families  are  left  in  the  most  miserable  condition.  The  corn  was  carried  off  by 
the  Turks  in  the  place;  all  the  cattle  by  the  Servian  soldiers.  In  the  pillage,  burning  and 
massacre,  the  Servian  soldiers  were  assisted  by  Turks  well  known  in  the  country,  whose 
names  are  set  down:  Mohamed  Hadjiev,  Osman  Tchaouch  Afouzov,  Boudan  Moustapha 
Tchaouch  Redjebov,  Riza  Kordeveski,  Ismail  Tchipev,  Adem  Nalbansko  and  his  sons,  Soulio 
Tarskine,  Ousso  Kossevki  and  his  son. 

The  Servians  made  a  Turk,  Kel  Assan  Effendi,  a  Turkish  ex-advocate,  at  Kotchani, 
commander  at  Blatetz. 

5.    Canton  of  Kotchani. 
(1)     Bezikovo. 

The  Servian  army  entered  in  July  5/18,  and  put  to  death  the  following  individuals: 
Pecho  Antov,  thirty-five  (all  his  cattle  was  carried  off)  ;  Gavriel  Arsov,  thirty-eight;  Anghel 
Arsov,  thirty-five;  Nicolas  Anghelov,  forty;  Stoiemen  Vanakov,  thirty-seven;  Gheorghi 
Arsov,  thirty-eight;  Theodosi  Christov,  forty;  Mitko  Christov,  thirty;  Manassia  Stoyanov, 
fifty';  Anastas  Stoyanov,  fifty;  Ivantcho  Karanfilov,  thirty-eight;  Paranfil  Petzov,  sixty-six; 
Stoimen  Ivanov,  thirty-eight;  Lazar  Tassev,  thirty-three;  Sophia  Kolibarska,  seventy;  Ste- 
phane  Ivanov,  thirty- four;  Mara  Galevska,  seventy;  Anghel  Stoyanov,  fifty;  the  son  of 
Lazar  Stoyanov  Spassev,  aged  one  year  and  a  half,  was  thrown  into  the  flames.  The 
following  women  were  outraged:  Svezda  Temilkova,  twenty-three;  Atahanaska  Anghelova, 
thirty,  who  died  afterwards;  Alane  Markova,  thirty,  who  also  died.  The  Servians  put  fire 
to  sixteen  houses  and  to  the  crops:  the  cattle  were  driven  off. 


iSome  of  the  Bulgarians  who  were  killed  may  be  added  to  this  list.  Vladimir  Yanev, 
twenty-seven;  Trifound  Dimov,  sixty;  Trifoun  Samardjiev,  forty-six;  Anghel  Stoiemenov, 
thirty-two;  Momtchil  Moutaftchiev,  fifty-five;  Sv.  Pavel  Dimitfiev,  fifty. 


372  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

(2)  Isti-Bania. 

Christo  Marin,  fifty;  Tryanka  Simeon  Ova,  twenty-five;  Nicolina  Lazarova,  twenty- 
eight,  were  killed. 

(3)  Pressef. 

One  hundred  and  seventy  houses  were  burned. 

(4)  Lyki. 

The  Servian  troops  killed  Dedo  Marko,  eighty  years  old,  and  his  sons,  Athanasius,  forty- 
five,  and  Todor,  forty;  Alexander  Bilianov,  aged  seventy  (his  sons,  Gherassin,  forty,  and 
Stoyan,  thirty-five,  were  taken  no  one  knew  whither).  Ivan  Mitzov,  Gale  Dimitrov,  fifty; 
Nico  Mitzov,  thirty;  Evda  Andonova,  fifty;  Gheorghi  Athanassov,  sixty;  Ampo  Mitev, 
twenty-five;  Spasse,  thirty;  Andon  Stoitchev,  fifty;  Seraphin  Alexov,  thirty;  Ilia  Oulezov, 
sixty ;  Peter  Angelov,  sixty ;  Seraphim  Gheorghiev,  forty-five ;  Gheorghi  Yovev,  ninety. 
Those  taken  away  by  the  Servians :  Stoiko  Mitev,  twenty ;  Nicolas  Lazarov,  twenty ;  Eftim 
Temelkov,  forty;  Miladine  Eftimov,  twenty-five;  Miche  Yanev,  sixty;  Ilia  Nicov,  forty; 
Mite  Tzonev,  forty. 

The  Servians  also  carried  off  10,000  sheep,  300  oxen,  sixty  horses,  100  pigs  and  twenty 
asses;  ninety- four  houses  and  150  cabins  were  burned,  and  nineteen  sacked  within  the 
village  area.  The  whole  of  the  corn  was  carried  off.  Stefan  Petzov  was  robbed  of  ten 
louis,  Nako  Mitzov,  seven  Turkish  pounds,  and  so  on.  Efrem  Nazlymkine,  Pecho  Danev 
and  Grigor  Kartchev  were  only  released  on  payment  of  nine  Turkish  pounds. 

6.  Sokolartsi.     (Events  of  August  17  and  following  days.) 

All  the  Wallachians  were  named  Administrators,  and  took  possession  of  the  Municipal 
building,  with  Gheorghi  Naoumov  at  their  head.  The  Wallachians  thus  become  masters 
and  calling  themselves  "brothers"  to  the  Servians,  thought  that  an  opportunity  of  becoming 
rich  easily  had  presented  itself :  they  accordingly  made  heavy  impositions  from  the  Bul- 
garians of  Sokolartsi  and  the  neighboring  villages.  Thus  in  Sokolartsi  they  collected  300 
louis  d'or  as  the  price  of  escape  from  death.  With  the  aid  of  the  Servian  authorities  the 
Wallachians  said,  "Hitherto  you  were  masters  and  pillaged  our  goods.  Now  it  is  our  turn 
to  pillage  yours,"  and  they  were  as  good  as  their  word.  They  forbade  the  women  to  wear 
their  "chatnia"  (scarf  or  handkerchief  which  they  wear  on  their  head),  saying,  "You  will 
not  be  Bulgarians  any  more,  and  since  you  are  Servians  in  future  you  must  wear  nothing 
on  your  heads." 

7.  Lipetz.     (Kotchani.) 

Here  the  Servians  killed  about  seventeen  persons.  Here  are  the  names  of  some  of  the 
victims.  The  three  brothers  Antonia,  Philip  and  Trifon  Timov;  the  three  brothers  Zachary, 
Todor  and  Trifon  Postolov;  Simo  P.  Athanasov;  the  wife  of  S.  P.  Athanasov  died  of 
fear,  while  her  husband  was  being  murdered.  The  mother  of  the  Postolov  brothers  was 
outraged  after  sixteen  louis  d'or  had  been  taken  from  her.  The  wives  of  Zachary  and 
Trifon  Postolov  suffered  the  same  fate. 

8.  Yakimovo. 

Yakimovo  was  also  pillaged  by  the  Servian  soldiers  and  some  houses  burned. 

In  this  village  the  Servians  put  to  death  Anton  Phillippov  and  Christo  Priptchenez. 

9.  Zarnovez. 

At  Zarnovez  seven  persons  perished;  the  following  names  may  be  given:  Ivan  Pavlev, 
Ivan  Mitev,  and  the  priest,  Tomo  Triphanov. 


APPENDICES 


373 


10.     Gradets.     (District  of  Tikvich.) 

On  June  19,  the  witness  to  whom  we  are  indebted  for  this  story  was  in  his  house  and 
heard  there  cries  coming  from  the  village:  "Save  yourselves!  Our  army  has  retired  and 
the  Servians  are  burning  or  killing  everything  they  meet  upon  their  way."  He  ran  down 
to  the  village  to  find  his  children,  but  only  found  his  father,  aged  ninety.  Leaving  the 
house  of  the  latter  he  succeeded  in  rejoining  his  children  and  the  other  fugitives  and  hiding 
with  them  in  the  forest  above  the  village.  Some  ten  Servian  horsemen  then  arrived  and 
sent  a  peasant  to  them  to  tell  them  that  they  were  going  to  establish  order  and  security. 
Fifty  or  sixty  peasants  trusting  their  word  returned  to  the  village,  and  the  witness  and 
one  of  his  friends  drew  near  to  spy  out  what  happened.  From  afar  they  saw  some  corpses 
near  the  house  of  Constantino  the  tailor.  The  witness'  companion  returned  to  the  village 
to  see  things  more  near  at  hand,  while  he  himself  went  back  to  his  children.  At  nightfall 
this  companion  returned,  and  told  how  the  priest  Christo  and  Dimitri  Michkov  bound 
back  to  back  had  been  slain  at  the  bayonet's  point,  as  well  as  thirty-six  other  inhabitants, 
and  that  the  houses  had  been  pillaged.  On  the  next  day  the  village  was  given  over  to 
the  flames. 

On  the  third  day  Servians  and  Turks  came  to  the  forest  in  pursuit  of  the  fugitives, 
on  whom  they  fired  from  a  distance.  The  witness  then  saw  Traiko  Curtoich,  Lazar  Nicolov 
and  Athanasius  Iliev  fall  dead  before  his  eyes.  Thanks  to  the  night  the  fugitives  scattered 
and  made  their  escape  in  the  direction  of  the  villages  of  Lipopic  and  Dedino.  On  June  25, 
the  witness  lost  his  children  and  went  to  look  for  them  at  Radovitch.  The  Servians  were 
already  here  as  well  as  a  large  number  of  fugitive  inhabitants.  At  this  stage  the  invaders 
had  not  yet  surrounded  the  little  town  with  a  cordon  of  troops,  but  shortly  afterwards 
they  encompassed  it  with  the  assistance  of  Servian  and  Turkish  soldiers,  and  began  to 
make  a  return  of  the  population  by  villages  and  by  families. 

Searching  for  his  children  our  witness  entered  a  street  where  he  saw  the  heads  of  four 
men  rolling  about  on  the  ground.  He  fled,  terror  struck,  and  hiding  in  the  middle  of  a 
company,  managed  to  pass  through  the  cordon  of  soldiers  and  make  his  escape  with  other 
fugitives.  They  turned  their  steps  towards  the  village  of  Smiliantzi.  Servian  horsemen 
once  again  stopped  them  on  the  way.  The  officer  after  questioning  them  directed  them 
towards  the  village,  where  there  was  some  infantry.  A  large  quantity  of  cattle  and  pigs 
were  guarded  by  the  soldiers,  probably  with  a  view  to  eating  them.  They  took  sixty-five 
pounds  from  one  of  the  dead,  whose  name  was  unknown  to  witness.  They  sent  the  fugi- 
tives to  pass  the  night  in  the  neighboring  village  where  the  commander  was  to  arrive  the 
next  day  to  question  them.  Instead  of  going  to  this  village  they  went  towards  the  moun- 
tains and  crossing  Pehtchevo,  Saravo-Selo  and  Tcherna-Skala  entered  Bulgarian  territory. 
At  Kustendil  the  witness  found  his  children. 

The  following  story  was  told  by  a  woman,  Maria  Constantinovo,  belonging  to  a  body 
of  thirty-four  fugitives,  men,  women  and  children,  who  arrived  at  Kustendil  after  the 
fall  of  Gradets:  Some  ten  Servian  horsemen  accompanied  by  more  than  a  thousand 
bashi-bazouks  entered  Gradets.  The  entire  village  was  swept  by  an  appalling  panic,  on 
the  news  that  the  Turks  and  Servians  were  killing  any  Bulgarian  who  appeared  before 
them.  The  larger  part  of  the  population,  men,  women  and  children,  took  flight  before 
the  Servians  entered.  Only  the  old  people,  and  those  who  had  not  succeeded  in  escaping, 
were  left.  "Go,  fly,  you  young  people  at  any  rate,"  the  old  cried  out.  "If  the  Servians 
spare  us  we  will  let  you  know,  but  for  Heaven's  sake  save  yourselves,  and  let  God's  will 
be  done  to  us."  When  the  Servians  and  the  Turks  entered  the  village  the  old  people  came 
cut  to  receive  them  and  appealed  to  their  pity.  When  he  heard  the  population  had  taken 
flight,  a  Servian  horseman  sent  a  peasant  to  tell  them  that  if  they  did  not  return  all  their 


374  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

goods  would  be  pillaged  and  their  houses  burnt.  In  accordance  with  this  announcement 
most  of  the  fugitives  did  return.  The  Servian  horseman  then  ordered  the  Turks  to  seize 
all  the  men.  The  Turks  then  threw  themselves  into  the  houses  and  an  appalling  scene 
followed.  Some  Turks  invaded  the  witness'  house  and  seized  the  head  of  the  family. 
He  had  hardly  crossed  the  threshold  of  the  house  when  he  was  stabbed  and  fell  dead  on 
the  spot.  From  every  house  came  cries  of  distress  and  shots  were  fired.  The  witness 
who  went  out  of  her  house  saw  the  Servians  seize  sixty  to  seventy  men  and  lead  them  out 
of  the  village.  All  the  women  followed  them,  pleading  for  their  husbands.  Once  outside 
the  village  the  Servians  seized  the  younger  men  and  began  stabbing  them,  while  the  women 
cried  out  in  despair  and  wrung  their  hands,  without  anybody  showing  any  pity  for  them. 

The  witness,  terrified  by  this  horrible  scene,  fled,  taking  the  road  back  to  her  house. 
During  the  whole  time  the  Turks  went  on  killing  and  pillaging,  carrying  off  even  the 
young  girls.  Another  witness  from  the  same  village  saw  them  with  his  own  eyes  seize 
Maria  Pezova,  aged  seventeen,  Minka  Athanazova  of  the  same  age  and  Neda  Panova,  take 
them  on  horseback  and  carry  them  away,  singing  and  crying  towards  the  Turkish  villages 
of  Kocharka,  Golelia  and  Arsalia.  The  witness  then  made  his  escape :  near  the  village 
he  rejoined  other  fugitives  come  from  the  same  place  and  further  on  joined  yet  another 
group,  the  total  numbers  thus  being  about  300  persons. 

While  all  these  fugitives  were  going  away,  bashi-bazouks  pursued  and  fired  upon  them. 
Bullets  fell  like  hail :  men,  women  and  children  fell  dead  in  great  numbers.  Moreover, 
the  Turks  three  times  lay  in  ambush  for  them  and  so  slew  many  more.  On  the  third 
occasion  the  wretched  people  were  nearly  all  exterminated,  and  were  only  saved  by  the 
night.  Out  of  the  whole  group  only  nine  families  reached  Kustendil;  the  larger  part  of 
these  poor  people  were  scattered.  Many  died,  some  reached  Radovitch,  and  others  finally 
disappeared.  During  the  journey  they  were  joined  by  fugitives  from  Kontche  and  Loubnitza 
who  told  them  that  the  Servians  and  the  Turks  had  burned  and  massacred  everything  Bul- 
garian, that  they  themselves  had  seen  the  village  of  Kontche  in  flames  and  heard  the  shots. 

{Another  deposition  on  the  same  facts.) 

On  June  24/July  7  the  entire  village  of  Gradets  was  set  on  fire  by  Servian  troops,  who 
killed  fifty-one  men  and  nine  women  of  the  village  and  carried  off  three  young  girls.  The 
names  of  the  men  killed  were:  Kostadinc  Gounov,  Yato  Nicolov  and  his  son,  Lazar  Petre 
Poreklato,  Velko  Gheorghiev.  Constantin,  Stoyanov,  Anghel  Zaycov,  Spasso  Moskovski, 
Trayko  Daphinine,  Spasse  Gheorghiev  Athanese  and  Nicolas  Gheorghiev,  Dino  Petkov, 
Gheorghi  Stoycov,  Micho,  father  and  son,  Thanas  Andov,  Pavle  Kotchev,  the  priest  Christo 
Pavlevski,  Karanfila  Pavleska,  Stoyan  Pavlevski,  etc. 

Names  of  the  women  slain :  Zoyia  Filea  and  her  daughters  Mitra,  aged  fourteen 
years,  and  China,  two  years;  Tana  Dintcheva,  Yana  Gounovska,  Maria  Trayanova,  and  her 
daughter-in-law  Sovka  Pepova,  Maria  Lazeva,  Bojana  Christova.  The  following  were 
thrown  to  the  flames :  Nicolsa  Stoyanov,  aged  ninety ;  Gheorghi  Choumkar,  eighty,  and 
Temelko  Nenkov,  seventy.  Those  carried  off :  Maria  Nedina,  eighteen ;  Nenka  Taneva, 
eighteen;  and  Neda  Panova,  seventeen. 

Andrea  Constantinov,  aged  twenty-two,  was  disfigured  by  a  Servian  officer  who  struck 
him  with  his  sabre:  he  succeeded  in  escaping,  but  his  father  and  his  companion,  Christo 
Vasov,  aged  fifty,  were  cut  in  pieces. 

11.     Village  of  Lipa    (Tekvech}.    Evidence  of  Efrew  Kamtchev  and  Dimo   Stoyanov. 

The  village  of  Lipa  was  pillaged  and  burnt  by  Servian  regulars,  who  took  twelve  boys, 
aged  about  12  years,  and  three  women,  and  conducted  them  to  the  village  of  Iberlia. 
Nothing  is  known  of  their  fate.  The  rest  of  the  population  fled  towards  the  village  of 


APPENDICES  375 

Loubnitza  where  they  were  surrounded  by  Servian  soldiers  who  fired  upon  them  and  treated 
them  with  violence.  The  schoolmaster,  Kotze  Danev,  and  his  daughter  were  thus  killed, 
and  his  brother  was  taken  and  led  away  by  the  Servians.  The  latter  killed  two  children 
besides,  whose  names  are  not  known.  They  tortured  the  wife  of  Thodor  Kamtchev  to  force 
her  to  give  them  money.  As  she  had  not  any,  the  Servian  soldiers  stabbed  her  four-year-old 
child  to  death  in  her  arms.  The  other  women  and  children  were  led  by  them  into  the 
Turkish  houses,  and  nothing  is  known  of  their  fate.  In  the  same  village,  Dinep  Barsovetsa 
of  Negotino,  and  Kreston  of  Dissan  were  killed.  The  mother  of  Nicholas  Constantinov, 
aged  eighty  years,  perished  as  well. 

12.  At  Radovitch  and  in  the  vicinity.  The  Servians  entered  Radovitch  the  day 
after  June  29.  For  a  day  or  two  the  inhabitants,  of  whom  some  had  fled  when  the  Bulgar 
army  retreated,  did  not  leave  the  town.  As  soon  as  they  arrived,  the  Servians  began  to 
search  the  Bulgar  houses,  and  to  take  anything  they  could  lay  their  hands  on.  The 
Albanian  Captain  Yaa,  formerly  a  cavass  of  the  Servian  Agency  at  Veles,  accompanied 
them.  Before  war  was  declared,  he  was  already  wandering  about  in  the  vicinity  of  Tikvech 
with  a  band  of  followers,  causing  great  damage  to  the  Bulgar  population. 

The  Servian  officers  collected  a  great  deal  of  money  at  Radovitch.  Under  the  form  of 
gifts  to  the  Red  Cross,  the  country-  people  poured  out  fifteen,  or  thirty,  or  forty  gold  louis, 
to  avoid  the  tortures  which  awaited  them. 

The  Servian  cavalry  arrived  first  at  the  village  of  Novo-Selo,  where  they  were  given 
bread  and  milk.  Then  came  the'  infantry  and  then  the  soldiers  began  to  force  their  way 
into  the  houses.  Clothes,  money,  everything,  was  stolen.  They  did  not,  however,  assault 
the  women.  No  doubt  they  would  have,  but  for  the  vigorous  intervention  of  the  people, 
which  permitted  the  young  women  and  girls  to  run  away  and  hide  in  the  forest.  In  the 
neighboring  village  of  Varcheska,  all  the  women  were  violated,  and  the  men  killed  by  the 
Turks  of  the  nearby  villages,  accompanied  by  three  Servians.  The  entire  village  was 
sacked.  At  Chipkovitza  the  people  were  terribly  ill-treated.  The  Servian  army  was  fol- 
lowed by  Turks  who  aided  them  in  their  cruelties.  No  life  was  spared  unless  paid  for  by 
money.  The  women  were  violated,  and  some  of  them  taken  outside  the  village  by  the 
soldiers  from  whom  they  were  rescued  later  on.  They,  too,  were  asked  for  money.  Kalia, 
wife  of  Traiko  Andonov,  a  notable  of  Chipkovitza,  was  undressed,  robbed  of  the  money  she 
had  about  her,  then  assaulted.  The  daughter-in-law  and  the  daughter  of  Kostadine  Ghigov 
were  also  violated,  while  Ghigov  himself  was  beaten.  Every  one  of  these  brutalities  was 
the  work  of  Servians. 

Goods  and  cattle,  both  were  plundered  at  Chipkovitza,  as  at  Novo-Selo.  From  the 
house  of  the  witness  from  whom  these  details  have  been  obtained,  everything  was  stolen 
that  could  be  taken,  including  eight  gold  louis.  His  brother  was  seized  and  searched,  and 
when  they  found  fr.  40  on  him,  they  led  him  into  the  house  to  see  if  he  could  not  find 
some  more  money  there.  The  Servians  wanted  to  murder  him  with  a  hatchet,  but  he 
threw  himself  from  a  window,  and  in  this  way  saved  his  life.  At  Smilentzi  the  famous 
Captain  Yaa  killed  Gogue  Kripilski  and  three  other  inhabitants,  Zacharie  Arsein,  young 
Aughel  and  another  boy.  The  wife  and  daughter-in-law  of  the  Voivode  of  Radovitch, 
Stamen  Temelkov,  himself  originally  of  the  village  of  Orahovitza,  were  cruely  ill-treated. 
The  Bey  of  Radovitch,  Yachar-bey,  arrived  at  Orahovitza  accompanied  by  Servian  soldiers. 
They  seized  the  women,  extracted  money  from  them,  burnt  their  hands,  searched  the 
houses,  and  found  revolvers,  sabres  and  watches  which  they  carried  off. 

At  Boislavtsi  the  Bulgars  whose  names  follow  were  robbed.  Sv.  Stephen  Athanassov 
who  lost  seven  louis;  Todor  Ivanov  who  lost  thirty-five  louis;  Gligor  Iliev  from  whom 
three  louis  were  taken,  a  watch,  and  a  pair  of  shoes ;  Traiko  Domazetov  robbed  of  £T5 ; 


376  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

and  the  widow  Trayanka  Eftimova,  robbed  of  £T3.  The  locality  of  Kontche  was  burnt 
by  the  regular  Servian  army.  The  sons  of  Dana  Dontcheva,  Athanas,  aged  twenty,  and 
Efting,  aged  seventeen,  were  taken  no  one  knows  where. 

Loubnitza  was  also  burnt  by  the  Servian  troops  who  caused  the  death  of  Philippe 
Stoimenov  (sixty  years),  Dona  Kotzeva,  school  teacher  (sixteen  years),  Gheorghi  Stefanov 
(thirty  years),  Dimitrouche  Christov  (ten  years),  Efa  Kotzeva  (thirty  years),  Ilia  Ste- 
phanov  (twenty-five  years)  and  Kotze  Stephanov.  As  to  the  women,  some  were  carried 
off,  such  as  Rossa  Iliev,  Nevenka  Trayanova,  Yordana  Stephanova,  Gouna  Stoyandva, 
Soultana  Gheorghieva,  and  others  were  killed,  as  was  Zlata  Mihalova. 

13.  Protocol  of  the  Inquiry  of  the  Bulgarian  Commission  upon  the  Massacres  of 
Bossilegrad. 

The  Commission  named  by  order  of  the  Commandant  of  the  fifth  actual  army  (No. 
1764)  composed  of  Colonel  Tanev  Alexandre,  chief  of  the  Brigade  of  United  Cavalry, 
President;  Mr.  M.  Eschenkov  Nicola,  Chief  of  the  District  of  Kustendil;  Dr.  Petrov, 
Lieutenant  of  the  Health  Department;  Tochko,  Chief  of  the  Sanitary  Section  of  the 
Fifth  Army;  Rev.  Father  Anastase  Poppe  Zacariev,  acting  as  Bishop;  Sotir  Iltchov, 
Municipal  Town  Councilor,  members: 

Met  today,  July  2,  1913,  near  the  fulling  mill  of  Dimitri  Doitchinov,  situated  about  one 
kilometer  on  the  road  from  Bossilegrad  to  Lubalite,  at  the  place  where  on  June  28  last, 
towards  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning,  were  shot  and  buried  by  the  Servian  army,  to  whom 
they  had  given  themselves  up,  Colonel  Tanev  Ilarion,  chief  of  the  Sixth  Regiment  of 
Cavalry;  Lieutenant  Stefanov  Stefan,  commissary  of  stores  in  the  same  regiment;  the 
Lieutenant  of  Sanitary  Service,  Cautev  Stefan,  veterinary  doctor  of  the  same  regiment; 
Cavalry  Sergeant  Vladev  Christo,  trumpet  major,  and  Lieutenant  Minkov  Assen  of  the 
lllth  Regiment  of  her  Imperial  Highness  the  Grand  Duchess  Maria  Pawlowna;  in  order 
to  establish  the  identity  of  the  dead,  to  investigate  the  circumstances  in  which  they  were 
shot,  and  to  draw  up  the  necessary  act  upon  the  subject. 

According  to  the  disposition  of  the  Captain  of  the  Sanitary  Service,  Dr.  Koussev  Pan- 
telei,  taken  prisoner  like  his  companions  but  left  at  Bossilegrad  on  account  of  the  serious 
wound  he  had  received  in  his  breast;  of  the  old  woman,  Elena  Mitreva,  eye  witness  while 
she  was  at  the  fullery  of  the  fusillade  which  killed  the  above  named;  of  the  fuller  Sotir 
Bogilov,  and  of  the  miller  Mito  Simionov,  who  buried  the  dead  in  the  garden  of  the 
fullery;  as  well  as  according  to  the  report  of  the  Captain  of  Cavalry,  Captain  Vesselinov, 
Chief  of  the  Squadron  of  the  Sixth  Regiment  of  Cavalry,  it  is  established : 

1st.  That  by  the  sudden  appearance  at  dawn  of  the  Tenth  Regiment  of  .Servian 
Infantry  at  Bossilegrad,  the  aforementioned  officers  and  the  trumpet  major,  as  well  as  the 
Captain  of  the  Sanitary  Service  Koussev,  were  surrounded  in  the  street  and  taken  prisoner. 
Then  a  Servian  soldier  fired  at  a  distance  of  two  feet,  piercing  the  breast  of  Captain 
Koussev.  The  capture  of  the  Bulgar  officers  once  assured,  the  Servian  commandant  pro- 
posed to  Colonel  Tanev,  to  send  an  order  to  the  second  and  third  squadrons  to  give 
themselves  up.  Under  the  threat  of  being  shot,  Colonel  Tanev  wrote  the  required  letter 
and  sent  it  to  the  superior  commandant  of  the  squadrons,  Cavalry  Captain  Vesselinov. 
In  the  meantime,  the  shots  became  more  frequent.  The  machine  guns  of  the  regiment 
were  brought  out,  and  these  opened  fire  at  forty  feet.  Then  the  Captains  of  Cavalry,  Ves- 
selinov and  Mednicarov,  who  were  commanding  the  Bulgar  squadrons,  led  the  latter  with 
fixed  bayonets  against  the  hostile  foot  soldiers,  drove  back  the  Servians  and  put  them  to 
flight,  while  the  imprisoned  officers  and  the  drum  major  were  conducted  to  the  first  mill 
on  the  road  leading  to  Lubalite.  Once  there,  the  order  was  a  second  time  given  to  Colonel 
Tanev  to  send  a  second  command  to  the  squadrons  to  give  themselves  up.  He  did  this, 


APPENDICES  377 

but  without  result.  It  was  then  that  our  infantry  appeared  on  the  height,  which  forced 
the  Servians  to  leave  the  town  to  reach  the  neighboring  hills,  and  to  send  the  prisoners,  with 
the  exception  of  Captain  Koussev,  on  the  road  to  Lubalite. 

2d.  That  the  old  woman  Elena  Mitreva,  says  that  she  kept  close  to  the  fullery,  and 
saw  when  the  officers  were  led  off.  They  were  marching  in  front,  and  behind  them,  at  a 
short  distance,  about  ten  Servian  soldiers  followed.  When  they  came  near  the  fullery, 
the  Servian  soldiers  put  up  their  rifles  and  fired  at  the  officers  who  fell  dead  on  the  road, 
one  of  them  even  rolling  into  the  river.  After  that  the  Servian  soldiers  plundered  them 
and  stole  their  boots. 

3d.  That  the  fuller  Sotir  Bogilov,  and  the  miller  Mitse  Simeonov,  being  in  proximity 
to  the  fullery,  carried  the  bodies  of  the  dead  men  into  the  garden  of  the  aforesaid  building, 
with  the  aid  of  the  Servian  soldiers,  and  having  dug  a  common  trench,  buried  them. 
While  the  burial  was  taking  place,  one  of  the  Servian  soldiers  said  that  among  the  dead 
there  were  some  Swabians  and  a  Turk,  so  that  the  Servians  obliged  Mitse  Simeonov  to 
examine  the  latter  to  ascertain  if  he  were  circumcised. 

4th.  That  the  commission  has  ordered  the  opening  of  the  trench  to  establish  the 
identity  of  the  deceased.  This  has  been  done.  The  faces  were  black  and  swollen,  but  the 
features  could  be  recognized,  and  it  was  proved  that  the  bodies  were  undoubtedly  those  of 
the  aforesaid  victims,  as  indeed  their  uniforms,  still  decorated  with  their  epaulettes,  attested. 

The  result  of  the  examination  of  the  Doctor  Lieutenant  Petrov,  establishes  that  Colonel 
Tanev  was  struck  in  the  temple,  and  that  the  ball  came  out  at  the  top  of  the  skull,  scattering 
the  brains.  As  to  Lieutenant  Minkov  and  the  drum  major,  they  were  struck  on  the  nape 
of  the  neck,  the  ball  in  the  first  case  emerging  through  the  left  eye,  and  in  the  second 
case,  by  the  right  eye.  The  veterinary,  Contev,  was  struck  by  three  balls;  one  penetrated 
the  back  and  pierced  the  middle  of  the  stomach,  the  second  crossed  the  kidney;  the  third 
struck  him  in  front,  below  the  left  shoulder.  Lieutenant  Stefanov  was  struck  by  two  balls, 
one  which  entered  the  back  and  went  through  the  chest,  the  other  entering  the  kidney. 

The  commission  ordered  that  the  bodies  of  the  defunct  should  be  transferred  to  the 
cemetery  of  the  church  and  buried  there,  which  was  done  the  same  day. 

In  testimony  of  which  the  present  process  has  been  drawn  up 

Signed :    COLONEL  TANEV  ALEXANDRE, 
Chief  of  the  Double  Brigade,  President  of  the  Commission. 

Members : 

FSCHENKOV, 

Chief  of  the  District  of  Kustendil. 
DR.   PETROV, 

Chief  of  the  Sanitary  Section,  Fifth  Army. 
REV.   FATHER  ANATASE  POPPE  ZACHARIEV, 

Acting  as  Bishop. 
SOTIR  ILTCHEV, 

Municipal  Councilor. 
Certified  confirmed  from  the  original. 

DR.  G.  FZENOV, 

Secretary  to  the  Minister  of  War. 


APPENDIX   I 
Bulgaria 

Table  of  Officers  and  Soldiers  Wounded  During  the  Wars  of  191 
Sent  in  by  Major  General  Clement  Boyadjiev,  Minister  of  War  in  Bulgaria 
Killed         Wounded     Disappeared  Remarks 


War  against  the  Turks. 

Officers  

Soldiers  . 


War  against  the  allies. 

Officers  

Soldiers , 


Totals : 

Officers  . 


313 
29,711 

266 
14,602 

579 


Soldiers  .  ' 44,313 


915 

52,550 

816 
50,303 

1,731 
102,853 


2 
3,193 

69 
4,560 

71 
7,753 


Figures  have  been  verified. 
Figures  have  been  verified. 

Figures  have  been  verified 
Approximate  figures. 


Cost  of  the  War  of  1912-1913 

(June 25,  /p/j) 

1.    Maintenance  of  the  army 

(a)  Food  of  the  army,  i.  e.,  563,076  effectives  at  fr.  1.40  per  day,  and 

211,431    animals    (beasts   of   transport,   horses,    remount    mules) 

at  fr.  2.20  a  day,  from  September  17,  1912,  to  June  1,  1913 fr.  322,137,832.20 

(b)  Pay  of  reserve  officers,  together  with  the  indemnity  on  the  opening 

of  the  campaign  and  supplementary  war  pay 89,793,490 

(The  sums  paid  to  officers  in  time  of  peace,  due  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, being  deducted.) 

2.    Equipment  of  the  army 

(a)  Clothing   of   the   army   in   the   field,   i.   e..  563,076  men   at    fr.    100 

per  head   (uniform,  cap,  linen  and  boots) 56,307,600 

(b)  Equipment  of  the  army  in  the  field,   i.  e.,  450,000  men   at   fr.   60 

per  head    (haversack,  can,  nosebag,  etc.) 27,000.000 


AJ'PKXDICES 


379 


(a) 


(b) 


(O 
(d) 


3.     Material  of  war  and  ammunition 

Artillery. 

Batteries  of  mountain  cannon.  Batteries  of  field  cannon.  Batteries 
of  siege  cannon,  including  shells,  shrapnel,  etc.,  which  according 
to  the  statement  put  in  by  the  War  Minister  amounted  to 
fr.  126,612,926.  Allowing  fifty  per  cent  for  destruction  or  loss  of 
the  original  value,  there  remain fr.  63,306,463 


Infantry. 

330,000  muskets  (Mannlicher  system)  at  fr.  80  each.. 

100,000    muskets    (Mannlicher    system)     supplied     at 

the  beginning  of  the  war  at  fr.  100  each 

With   1,000  cartridges  at   fr.    140   for   each    of    the 

430,000  muskets  .  .     .  . 

51,328  muskets— Berdan— at  fr.  60  each 

50,000  muskets  (Three  line  system)  at  fr.  80  each... 
With  500  cartridges  per  musket  at  fr.  90  a  thousand. . 
232  machine  guns  (Maxim  system)  at  fr.  13,850  each 
With  40.00C  cartridges  per  machine  gun  or  9,280,000 

cartridges,  at  fr.  140  per  thousand,  /'.  c., 

Delivered  during  the  war 
24,000,000     cartridges,     8mm.,      Mannlicher     system, 

ninety-five  supplied  by  the  firm  of  Erhardt,  i.  e.,. . 
Mannlicher  outfits   supplied  by  the  firms   of  Weiss, 

Hirtenberg,      Erhardt,      Gutt      and      the      Societe 

Franqais 

Miscellaneous   items    . 


fr.  26,400,000 
10,000,000 

60,200,000 
3,079,680 
4,000,000 
2.250,000 
3,213,200 


1,299,200 


2,302,800 


4,926,780 
813,091 


Since  the  war  lasted  more  than  six  months  at  least  half  of  this 
material  and  ammunition  was  lost  or  used  up,  leaving 
half, i.  e.,  fr.  59,242,375.50. 

Cavalry      

Engineers  .  , 

Approximate  value  of  the  loss  of  portable  works  and  artillery  parks. 

Loss  of  bridge  construction  material  and  purchase  of  material  for 
temporary  bridges,  etc. 

Explosives. 

Construction  of  roads  and  bridges  during  the  war. 

Trappings  for  animals. 

Deterioration  of  aeroplanes,  of  telegraphic  wires,  of  signalling  ap- 
paratus, of  bicycles. 

Cantonments,  conversion  of  barracks  into  hospitals  in  the  occupied 
territories  and  repair  of  the  existing  barracks. 

Extraordinary  hiring  of  stables,  depots,  hostels,  houses,  etc.,  and 
indemnity  for  their  destruction. 

Deterioration  of  motors  and  indemnity  for  them. 

Sanitary  service 


fr.  118,484,751 


1,500,000 
18,000.000 


12,000,000 


380 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 


4.    Cost   of  transport.    Requisitions.    Service  horses 

(a)  During  the  period  of  hostilities  there  was  no  transport  on  the  Bul- 

garian railway  lines  except  that  of  soldiers,  ammunition,  pro- 
visions, and  the  sick. 

The  loss  to  the  Bulgarian  treasury  is  the  total  receipts  from  the 
railways  received  in  this  period  in  time  of  peace. 

The  receipts  for  1911  amounted  to  fr.  25,645,973.  Allowing  in 
round  figures  a  minimum  loss  of  two  million  francs  a  month, 
the  total  for  six  and  a  half  months  is fr.  13,891,566 

(b)  The  service  of  the  Bulgarian  army  comprised   116,731   horses  and 

100,000  oxen,  some  belonging  to  the  army,  others  subsequently 
requisitioned,  representing  a  total  of  216,731  animals  at  fr.  500 
a  head,  or  fr.  108,365,500. 

Half  these  animals  were  killed  and  lost.  To  the  accounts  there 
must  be  carried,  therefore,  fifty  per  cent  of  their  value  or 

Attached  to  the  army  there  were  50,000  carriages  at  fr.  300  each,  a 
value  of  fifteen  million  francs.  Thirty  per  cent  at  least  of  these 
are  absolutely  unusable ;  there  is  thus  a  loss  of 

Before,  or  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  the  War  Minister  pur- 
chased 7,350  horses  for  the  army  at  a  cost  of  fr.  6,972,681.80 

It  is  estimated  that  7,893  horses  were  killed  or  rendered  useless;  at 
a  thousand  francs  each,  this  represents  a  loss  of 


5.    Cost  of  maintenance  of  the  sick 

Provision  of  hospital  accommodation  in  various  establishments  for 
the  sick  and  wounded.  Allowing  two  francs  per  day  per  soldier, 
and  allowing  for  each  soldier  of  an  army  of  563,076  men  an  aver- 
age period,  during  the  war,  of  thirty  days  of  sickness,  the  total 
expense  between  September  17,  1912,  and  January  1,  1913,  is 

6.    Miscellaneous  losses 
Loss  and  damage  to  war  material,  and  other  miscellaneous  losses.. 


54,182,750 


4,500,000 


7,893,000 


33,784,560 


2,000,000 


Total fr.  824,782,012.20 


Net  cost  of  the  clothing  and  equipment  of  the  Bulgarian  soldier 
(a)     Clothing 


Soldier's  greatcoat   

Coat 

Trousers 

Cap 

Shirt,  in  the  shape  of  a  coat  for  summer  wear. 

Boots 

Knickerbockers   (summer  trousers) 

Summer  cap  

Cover  for  the  cap 

Shirt  . 


fr.  24 
13.85 

8 

2.25 

3.60 
23 

3 

2.15 
.70 

1.50 


APPENDICES  381 

Knickerbockers f  r.  1.50 

National  shoes  of  leather 3.70 

Cloth  band  for  the  national  shoes 4.50 

Ties  for  the  national  shoes .45 

Hood  for  use  in  cold  weather 3 

Gloves .50 

Flannel 4.50 

Puttees .70 

Cravat .35 


fr.  101.25 

(b)     Equipment 

Haversack f  r.  20 

Tent 7.85 

A  pair  of  cartridge  boxes 12 

Shoulder  cartridge  boxes   6 

Straps 1.80 

Banderole 1.30 

Strap   for  cap   .40 

Strap  for  bayonet  .50 

Portable  shovel   1.27^ 

Portable   spade    2 

Covering  for  the  spade .82J^ 

Covering  for  the  shovel .90 

Fork 3.50 

Porringer .75 


fr.  59.10 

(c)     Bedding 

Woolen   quilt    fr.  15.50 

Mattress 3 

Pillow .40 

Pillow  case  .50 

Sheets  .  2 


fr.  21.40 

Possessions  and  goods  belonging  to  the  company  carried  by  certain  soldiers, 
utensils,  instruments,  drums,  trumpets,  flags,  bags,  belts  and  leathers  for 
revolvers,  razors,  scissors  for  hair  cutting,  per  man fr.  20 

Pensions  to  be  granted 

Pensions  to  families  of  soldiers  killed  in  the  war  at  the  rate  of  fr.  500  per 
family  for  twenty  years,  for  29,711  families  of  soldiers  killed  or  dead 
as  the  result  of  their  wounds  equals  fr.  14,855,500  per  year,  the  value 
of  which  at  5  per  cent  per  year  or  2l/2  per  cent  per  half  year, 
amounts  to fr.  372,919,199 


382  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Pensions  to  families  of  officers  at  the  rate  of  3,000  francs  per  family  for 
twenty  years,  for  303  families  of  officers  killed  or  dead  as  the  result 
of  their  wounds,=939,000  per  year,  the  actual  value  of  which,  at  the 
rate  of  5  per  cent  a  year  or  2}/2  per  cent  per  half  year,  amounts  to. . .  fr.  23,571,501 

Pensions  to  invalided  officers  or  soldiers  at  fr.  300  a  year  on  10  per  cent 
of  the  total  number  wounded,  i.  e.,  8,668  men  for  thirty  years= 
2,600,000  francs  per  year,  the  actual  value  of  which  at  5  per  cent 
per  year  or  2l/2  per  cent  per  half  year  amounts  to 75,379,953 

These  are  the  figures  given  to  the  Financial  Commission  in  June,  1913.  They  certainly 
ought  to  be  increased,  since  the  note  of  the  numbers  of  killed  and  wounded  given  to  the 
Commission  by  the  War  Minister  in  the  middle  of  September,  1913,  were  soldiers  killed 
44,313,  officers  313,  invalided  10,458. 

Cost  of  maintenance  of  prisoners  of  war 
Food  and  treatment 

77,333  non-commissioned  officers  and  soldiers  for  907,393  days  at  fr.  140. .  fr.  12,704,150.30 

Eight  generals  for  750  days  at  fr.  20  a  day 15,000 

149  officers  of  the  general  staff  for  16,625  days  at  fr.  11 182,985 

1,796  superior  and  other  officers  for  187,533  days  at  fr.  7 1,312,731 


Total  on  June   1,   1913 fr.  14,214.866.30 

Miscellaneous  expenditure 

Cost  of  lodging,  heating  and  lighting fr.  1,093,879 

Cost  of  clothing  141,298.54 

Cost   of  barrack   construction 136.102.44 

Miscellaneous  (medicines,  clothing  for  the  sick,  and  burial  expenses),  etc...  406,637 


Total  on  March  25.7 April  8,  1913 f r.  15,992,783.28 

The  Public  Debt  of  Bulgaria 

On  January  1  of  Consolidated  debt  in 

the  year                                  circulation  Floating  debt  .   General  total 

1905 fr.  349,645,000  fr.  10,150,880  fr.  359,795,880 

1906 363,086,000  17,232,599  380,318,599 

1907 359,678,209  46,969,996  406,648,205 

1908 446,583,209  38,402,187  484,985,396 

1909 440,976,000  44,171,581  485,147,581 

1910 516,281,700  52,118,675  568,400,375 

1911 610,199,410  27,776,620  637,976,030 

191 2 603,799,618  29,493,524  633,293,142 

1913 625,005,286  107,615,521  732,620,807 


APPENDICES 


383 


Bulgarian  Post-OMce  Satingt  Bank 


Month 
January  .  .  . 
February     .  . 
March  ... 

April 

May 

June 

July 

August  .  .  .  . 
September  .  . 
October    .    . 
November  .  . 
December  . 


January  .  . 
February  . 
March  .  . 
April  .  .  .  . 
May  .... 

June 

July 


1912 


New 

accounts 
4,672 
3,373 
3,228 
2,950 
3,000 
2,830 
2,841 
2,257 
1,376 

731 
1,398 

714 


2,294 
1,873 
1,725 
2,150 
2,260 


Deposits 


Withdrawals 


Numbers 

Value 

Numbers 

Value 

27,112 

fr.  3,624,773 

15,425 

f>.  2,600,961 

29,361 

3,609,593 

15,921 

3,131,083 

30,702 

4,058,352 

15,840 

2,962,828 

19,227 

3,136,514 

17,185 

3,156,850 

21,350 

3,275,377 

16,604 

2,931,487 

23,343 

1,155,665 

15,470 

2,746,104 

22,834 

3,167,645 

15,791 

2,655,623 

19,914 

2,889,400 

16,829 

3,123.244 

10,566 

2,020,723 

27,203 

4,210,244 

3,637 

1,193,656 

7,798 

752,615 

5,947 

1,901,140 

6,631 

688,863 

5,433 

1,116,275 

7,797 

834,725 

1913 
12,811 
13,359 
12.862 
13,643 
13,911 


fr.  2,391,742 
2,562,444 
2,667,255 
2,992,408 
3,190,410 
2,831,532 
1,209,522 


9,110 

8,945 

10,437 

11,444 

11,034 


fr. 


956,660 
1,035,684 
1,281,017 
1,494,575 
1,443,849 
1,218,740 
1,573,196 


Bulgarian  Industries 


An  industrial  inquiry  made  in  1909  showed  that  there  were  261  private  industrial  estab- 
lishments and  five  State  industrial  establishments  profiting  by  the  law  for  the  encouragement 
of  native  industries. 

The  261  private  establishments  are  divided  as  follows: 


Capital 
invested 

fr.  2,433,366 

2,331,074 

5,446,099 

2,583,688 

26,490,397 

12,608,388 

3,296,756 

1,836.344 

1,182,224 

6,257,450 


1. 

2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
9. 
10. 

Number  of 
establishments 
Mines    and   quarries  -  -         4 

Number  of 
i      workpeople 

675 
816 
593 
497 
2,647 
3,971 
939 
434 
185 
50 

Metal   trades    

16 

Pottery  trades    

10 

Chemical    industries    

.  .      25 

Food   and    drink  trades  

100 

Textile    trades    

61 

Furnishing  and  woodworking  trades.... 

18 

.Leather  trades   

22 

Paper  trade  

3 

Production  of  physical  forces.. 

2 

Total  . 


261 


10,807 


fr.  64,465,786 


384  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

The  five  industrial  establishments  belonging  to  the  State  are  as  follows : 

1.  Mines  and  Quarries 2  1,360  fr.  1,646,654 

2.  Metal   trades    (repairs   of   carriages    and   loco- 

motives)        3  786 


Total   5  2,146  fr.  1,646,654 

These  industrial  establishments  may  be  grouped  as  follows  according  to  the  date  of 
their  foundation: 

Number  founded  from  1830  up  to  1879 20 

1880             1884 23 

1885             1885 33 

1890            1894 54 

1895             1899 36 

1900            1904 30 

1905             1909 70 

Total 266- 

During  the  period  1909  to   1912  the   following  industrial  houses  have  been  registered, 
as  industries  encouraged  by  the  State : 

Textile    factories    15 

Manufacture  of  felt  and  straw  hats 1 

Metal  trades IS 

Manufacture  of  stoneware,  bricks,   etc 14 

Chemical  industries  (soap,  candles,  oleaginous  products,  etc.) 11 

Manufacture  of  sugars  (sweets,  chocolates,  etc.) 6 

Cakes  and  biscuits    12 

Glass , 1 

Wood   and   furniture    6 

Tanneries 8 

Paper  and  cardboard 3 

Cement 2 

Stone  and  marble  quarries   2 

Shipbuilding    (Varna)     1 

Medical   supplies   ( Sofia)    1 

Electricity 1 

Total  .                                                                                                            .  102 


APPENDICES 


385 


The  Refugees 

The  following  table  gives  the  approximate  distribution  of  the  refugees  in  Bulgaria,  on- 
September  15,  1913: 


1. 

The  town  of  Sofia  

.  .      9,000 

15.  Canton    of    d'Aitos    

400- 

2. 

Canton  of  Samokov  

..      6,200 

16.                        Anchialo  

200 

3. 

Doubnitza  

.  .     10,000 

17.                        Bourgas  

6,500 

4. 

Kustendil  

..      4,900 

18.                        Karnobat  

1,400 

5. 

"          Pechtera  

.  .     12,000 

19.                        Narmanly  

1,600 

6. 

Stanimaka  

500 

20.                        Eski-Djouma  .... 

200 

7. 

Borissovgrad    .  .  . 

.  .      1,900 

21.                        Varna  and  Provadia 

900 

8. 

Tchirpan  

..       1,200 

22.                         Radomir  

350 

9. 

Naskovo  

..      8,200 

23.                        Ihtiman  

450 

10. 

Nova-Zagora    .  .  . 

..      1,100 

24.  Town  and  canton  of  Philippoli 

6,230 

11. 

Stara-Zagora  .  . 

.  .      7,800 

25.  Razardjik  

4,500 

12. 

Kazanlik  

500 

26.  Kotal  

30 

13. 

Yambol  

..      2,900 

27.  Paschnakly  

2,500 

14. 

Sliven  

..      2,900 

28.  Corna-Djoumaia  

10,000- 

Total 104,360 


Greece 


Table  of  the  Losses  of  the  Greek  Army. 

We  have  not  been  able  to  obtain  the  information  necessary  to  draw  up  this  table. 
Upon  the  date  of  1/14  December,  1913,  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  for  Greece  replied 
in  the  following  terms  to  a  request  which  we  had  addressed  to  him:  "I  greatly  regret 
that  I  am  unable  to  give  a  satisfactory  reply  to  your  request  of  the  17th  of  this  month. 
The  Minister  of  War  informs  me  that  the  General  Staff,  not  having  yet  completed  its 
statistics,  nor  collected  all  its  reports,  is  in  the  meantime  not  prepared  to  give  the  exact 
figures  of  the  numbers  wounded  in  our  two  wars,  nor  of  those  likely  to  be  invalided 
for  life." 


Cost  of  the  War  of  1912-1913 

(June  i,  1913) 

I.    Maintenance  of  the  army 

(a)  Food  of  the  army,  215,000  effectives  at  fr.  2  a  day, 

257  days fr.  110,510,000 

(b)  War    animals     (45,064    animals    requisitioned,     2,587 

horses  and  mules  for  remounts,  4,000  army  horses 

at  fr.  2.50  a  day,  total  51,651  animals),  257  days...  33,185,767 

(c)  Pay  of  reserve  officers,  together  with  the  indemnity 

on   the  opening  of  the  campaign  and   supplemen- 
tary war  pay  : . .  17,073,000 


fr.  160,768,767 


386 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 


II.    Equipment  of  the  army 

(a)  Clothing   of  the   army   in   the   field,   215,000   men   at 

f r.  92.45    f r.  19,876,750 

(b)  Equipment    of    the    army    in    the    field,    215,000    men 

at   fr.   42.80    9,202,000 

fr.  29,078,750 

III.     War  material  and  ammunition 

(a)  Artillery. 

Full  supply  of  cartridges  for  the  heavy  artillery..        fr.  2,200,000 

Shot  for  quickfiring  mountain  cannon,  to  the 
number  of  200,000  9,660,000 

Deterioration  of  the  material  of  mountain  cannon  2,720,000 

Deterioration  of  the  material  of  mountain  cannon  510,000 

Deterioration  of  the  material  of  heavy  artillery 
cannon 850,000 

Deterioration  of  the  harness,  etc.,  of  field 
artillery 1,200,000 

Deterioration  of  the  harness  of  the  mountain 
artillery 525,000 

Loss  and  deterioration  of  equipment  for  groom- 
ing horses,  etc 530,000 

fr.  18,195,000 

(b)  Infantry. 

Consumption     of    cartridges    to    the    number    of 

sixty-five   million    f  r.  6,825,000 

Loss  and  deterioration  of  180,000  musket  bar- 
rels at  fr.  16 2,880,000 

Loss  and  deterioration  of  18,000  complete  mus- 
kets at  fr.  90 1,620,000 

Loss  and  deterioration  of  transport  vehicles 950,000 

Deterioration  of  machine  gun  material 100,000 

12,375,000 

(c)  Cavalry. 

Deterioration   of   harness fr.  850,000 

Loss  and  deterioration  of  equipment  for  groom- 
ing horses 75,000 

925,000 

(d)  Engineers. 

Approximate  loss  of  portable  works  and  artil- 
lery parks  300,000 

Loss  of  bridge  apparatus  and  purchase  of  mate- 
rial for  the  construction  of  temporary  bridges..  150,000 

Explosives 300,000 

Construction,  repair  of  roads  and  bridges  during 
the  war  1,000,000 


APPENDICES 


387 


Harness    for   animals    fr.  300,000 

Deterioration  of  wireless  telegraphy,  signaling 
apparatus,  bicycles,  etc 900,000 

Cantonments,  conversion  of  barracks  into  hos- 
pitals in  the  occupied  territories  and  the  repair 
of  existing  barracks  550,000 

Extraordinary    hire    of    stables,     depots,    hostels, 

houses  and  indemnity  for  damage  done  to  them  300,000 

Deterioration   of  and  indemnity    for   motors 2,800,000 

Repairs   of  motors    and   running   expenses 2,765,787 

9,365,787 

(e)     Sanitary  service. 

Construction    of   barracks    for   the   wounded 150,000 

Sanitary  material   imported    from  abroad 3,200,000 

Sanitary  material  bought  at  home 450,000 

Medicines  imported   from   abroad 1,100,000 

Hospital  installation  in  trains  and  boats 700,000 

5,600,000 

IV.    Cost  of  transport,  requisition,  and  horses  for  the  war 

(a)  Railway  transport,  six  million  francs,  and  sea  trans- 

port, thirty  million   francs fr.  36,000,000 

(b)  Requisition   of   45,064    animals,    6,081     carriages     and 

4,147   boats    30,370,000 

(c)  Remounts :    1,164    horses    from    Hungary,    eighty-five 

from   Algeria,    1,338    from   France  and   800   mules 

from  Italy   3,897,797 

fr.  70,267,797 

V.     Cost  of  maintenance  of  the  sick 

Various  hospital  installations   for  the  wounded  and 
the  sick  to  the  end  of  May,  1913 fr.  4,240,000 

VI.    Miscellaneous 

Loss  and  deterioration  of  war  material  and  miscel- 
laneous   losses    7,000,000 

Grand  total fr.  317,816,101 


388 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 


Naval  expenditure 

From  September   18,   1912,  to  May  31,   1913    (old  style),  regular  peace  expenditure  being 

deducted 

Maintenance   of  the  fleet 
•(a)     Movement  material.  Tons. 

Coal 235,000  at  49.52     fr.  11,637,200 

Petrol  fcr  scouts 8,250  "  107.02  882,915 

Petrol    for    submarines 1,250  "  147.50  184,625 

Lubricating  oil   for  machinery 475  700  332,500 

for  cylinders    25  "  1,300  32,500 

for  bulkheads    250  "  700  175,000 

special 9  "  1,200  10,800 

for    submarines    ...          19  "  300  5,700 

for  stimoilne   5  "  720  3,600 

ordinary 180  "  1,000  180,000 

Tow 205  "  1,500  307,500 

Miscellaneous 12,460 

—   fr.  13,764,800 

•{b)     Maintenance  material. 

Petrol 45    at    1,000  fr.  45,000 

Alkaline    salt    16     "       200  3,200 

Alcohol 6     "       820  4,920 

Seeds 4.65 "    1,500  6,975 

Naphtha 4     "    1,750  7,000 

Linseed  oil  30     "    1,400  42,000 

Red  lead  19     "    1,000  19,000 

Stucco 4*/2 "       800  3,600 

Paint 35     "    1,000  35,000 

Miscellaneous 45,805 

fr.       212,500 

•<c)     Excess  in  wages  3,925,000 

<d)     Excess  on  commissariat 6,991,000 

•(e)     Clothing  for  reservists  1,705,000 

Cantonment 

Mackintoshes,    hammocks,   greatcoats,    beds,    tables   and   chairs,   kitchen 
and  ship  utensils   f r.    1 15,000 

War  material 

•(a)     Ammunition 4,670,000 

•(b)     Wear  and  tear  of 

Two  quick  firing  cannons,  Averov fr.  90,000 

One  Averov  cannon,  nineteen   200,000 

Warship  cannon  after  battle 2,000,000 

War  material  destroyed  on  the  man  of  war  Macedonia. . . .        125,000 
Conversion   of  powder,  resulting  from  the  overheating  of 

the  vessels 1,000,000 

Torpedoes 1,200,000 

Automatic  torpedoes   150,000 

—  4,765,000 
<c)     Sanitary  service  and  hospital  boats ; 550,000 


APPENDICES 


389 


Boats  requisitioned  for  the  service  of  the  fleet 

Indemnity  to  packets f r.  7,226,600 

to   cargo   boats 3,431,943 

tugs 233,400 

"  to  deteriorated  lighters  and  tugs 266,000 

to  lighters    115,670 

for    loss    and    deterioration    resulting    from    extraor- 
dinary use    2,000,000 

damage  to  the  transatlantic  steamer  Macedonia 4,000,000 

Destruction  of  the  steamer  Loros 450,000 

fr.  17,723,613 

Establishment  of  bases  of  operation 

Installation  of  wireless  telegraphy fr.     400,000 

Installation  for  debarkation  and  the  supply  of  water  and  light 150,000 

Setting  up  of  instruments  and  workshops  at  Oreons 150,000 

—        f  r.  700,000 

Loss  of  and  damage  to  steamboats 

Damage  on  the  armored  cruiser  Ameroff fr.    650,000 

Damage  on   scouts    450,000 

Damage   on  other  boats 570,000 

Damage  to  machinery  and  furnaces  550,000 

Miscellaneous   damage   1,000,000 

Reduction  in  the  value  of  the  units  of  the  fleet 17,000,000 

fr.  20,220,000 


Grand  total    fr.  75,341,913 

Pensions 

The  departments  concerned  estimate  the  sum  required  to  secure  the  pensions,  provided 
by  law,  to  the  families  of  officers,  soldiers  and  marines  killed  during  the  war,  and  to  those 
who  are  invalided  at  • 

fr.  50,000,000  for  the  land  army,  and 

fr.   4,000,000  for  the  fleet. 

Prisoners  of  war 

(a)  Food    and    maintenance    of    53,811    soldiers    and    non-commissioned 

officers  from  their  capture  up  to  March  31,  1913  (food  being  reck- 
oned at  the  rate  of  fr.  0.40  per  day) fr.  11,213,236.24 

(b)  Pay  to  captive  officers  up  to  March  31,  1913  (1,430  officers) 726,732.94 

(c)  Cost  of  transport  and  removal  of  prisoners  by  land  and  sea  up  to 

March   31,   1913    382,654.13 

(d)  Between  April   1,   1913,  and  June  30,   1913,  an  average  of   fr.  58,430 

per   day   was   spent  on   soldiers,   and   fr.   9,359.30  on   the  officers, 

totaling    6,168,826.30 

(e)  Cost  of  assistance  given  to   liberated  prisoners,   expense   of  burying 

the  dead  and  other  general  charges 1,508,550.39 


fr.  20,000,000.00 


390  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Damage  caused  by  the  detention  of  ships 

Ships  detained  at  Constantinople : 

Ten    packets    fr.    5,404,500 

Thirteen    cargo    boats    6,274,200 

Twenty-three    tugs    5,195,700 

Forty-one    sailing   ships,    lighters,   barques,    etc 1,211,966 

—  fr.  18,086,366 

Ships   detained  and   afterwards   released  on   the   intervention   of 
interested  individuals  of  foreign  nationality :  • 

Six   packets    fr.      337,200 

Fifty-two    cargo    boats    3,621,322 

fr.   3,958,522 

Ships  compelled-  to  remain  shut  up  in  the   Black   Sea  to  escape 
the    danger    of    being    detained    at    Constantinople    (loss 
of  cargo)  : 
Twenty-three  cargo  boats   fr.   4,511.014 


fr.  26,555.902 

Public  Debt  of  Greece 

-.  Capital  to  be  amortised — January  i,  1913 

drs.  5%            1881            120    millions    drs.  92,681,000 

"    5%           1884           170    millions    "  80,905,000 

"    4%           1887           Monopolies  "  121,930,000 

"    4%           1889           Rents "  138,787,000 

"    5%           1890  .         Larissa "  53,496,000 

"    5%            1893            Funded "  8,706,000 

"    2y2%        1898            Guaranteed "  130,870,000 

"    4%            1902            Hellenic    railways    "  55,782,000 

"    4%            1910            110  millions   "  110,000,000 

"    5%           1907           20  millions   "  19,578,000 

"    5%           1907           15  millions   "  14,490,000 

"     1%                             Maritime  allocations    "  17,139,000 


844,364,000 

drs.  5%  1398  Unified drs.   74,930,000 

"    5%  1900  Meligala   railways    "      11,470,000 

Patriotic "        1,828,500 

Circulation  of  bank  notes  on  account  of  the  Greek  treasury  61,779,575 

150,008,075 


Total  drs.  994,372,075 

Savings  Bank 

Of  all  the  Athenian  Banks 

1900.     December  31   drs.  3,598,000 

1912.  June  30   "  40,257,000 

1913.  June  30   "  59,365,000 


APPENDICES  391 

Loans  on  securities  in  all  the  Athenian  Banks 

1900.    December   31    drs.   39,885,000 

1911.  December    31    "     146,858,000 

1912.  December   31    "     150,841,000 

Loans  on  guaranteed  merchandise  and  general  depot  in  all  the  Athenian  Banks 

1900.    December   31    drs.     6,901,000 

1911.  December   31    "      99,314,000 

1912.  December    31    "      85,970,000 

1913.  June  30   "      84,120,000 

Greek  Emigration  to  the  United  States 

Year  Greek  emigration                       Total  immigration  to 

the  United  States 

1885  172                                        395,346 

1386  104                                          334,203 

1887  313  490,109 

1888  782  546,889 

1889  158  444,427 

1890  524  455,302 

1891  1,105  560,319 

1892  660  579,663 

1893  1,072  493,730 

1894  1,356  285,631 

1895  597  258,536 

1896  2,175  343,267 

1897  571  230,832 

1898  2,339  229,299 

1899  2,333  311,715 

1900  3,771  448,572 

1901  5,910  487,918 

1902  8,104  648,743 

1903  14,090  857.046 

1904  11,343  812,870 

1905  10,515  1,026,499 

1906  19,489  1,100,735 

1907  36,580  1,285,349 

1908  21,415  782,870 

1909  14,111  751,786 

1910  25,888  1,041,570 

1911  37.021  878.587 


392 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 


Money  sent  in  Postal  Orders  from  Greece  to  America  and  from  America  to  Greece 


Year 


1902 
1903 
1904 
1905 
1906 
1907 
1908 
1909 
1910 
1911 


Postal  orders  sent  from 
Greece  to  America 


42 
49 
110 
124 
150 
156 
499 
239 
241 
336 


drs. 


Value 

1,494.67 

2,637.62 

8,022.55 

7,602.84 

14,673.98 

15,548.37 

88,526.34 

35,012.63 

36,283.64 

58,085.09 


Postal  orders  sent  from 

America  to  Greece 
Number  of  Orders  Value 


409 

1,676 

4,477 

10,007 

34,211 

59,840 

47,079 

61,245 

88,463 

92,105 


drs. 


66,475 
267,364.75 
701,943.55 
1,734,967 
7,485,685.60 
13,956,494.35 
9,555,209 
13,727,693 
20,427,062.65 
19,579,887.65 


Deposits  in  the  banks  of  moneys  sent  from  America 


National   Bank    ...  .............................  ...............  drs.  18,265,808 

Bank  of  Ionia  ...............................................  10,186,103 

Bank  of  Athens   .................  ............................  9,405,610 

Bank  of  Mitylene   .  ..............  '.  ...........................  2,141,980 

Popular  Bank   .  ..............................................  412,693 

Commercial  Bank   ............................  ...............  11,406,084 

Bank  .........  <  ..............................................  2,018,182 

-  drs.  53,836,460 
ign 

National   Bank    ..............................................  drs.  17,269,317 

Bank  of  Ionia   ..............................................  11,216,615 

Bank  of  Athens  ..............................  ...............  4,068,000 

Orient   Bank    ...................................  .  .  ............  1,031,250 

Commercial  Bank    ...........................................  11,250,000 

Popular  Bank  ................................  .  .  .............  111,035 

Bank  .......................................  .  .  .  ............  2,376,842 

-  drs.  47,323,059 

Deposits  in  the  National  Bank  of  Greece,  before  and  during  the  War 

1912. 

June  30  ........................................  drs.  198,705,000 

September   30    .................................  "  197,785,000  (Declaration  of  war.) 

October  31    ..............................  .......  "  201,870,000 

November  30  ..................................  "  213,233,000 

December  31    ..................................  "  217,555,000 

1913. 

January   31    ...........................  ........  "  222,985,000 

February   28    ..................................  "  226,596,000 

March  31    .....................................  "  229,625,000 

April  30    ......................................  "  233,893,000 

May  31    .......................................  "  240,321,000 

June  30  .......................................  "  243,476,000 

July   31    .......................................  "  249,046,000 


APPENDICES 


393 


Deposits  in  all  the  Athenian  Banks 

1900.    December  31   drs.    92,755,000 

1912.  June   30    "    352,762,000 

1913.  June  30    "    441,681,000 

i 
Capital  of  Banks  and  Industrial  Joint  Stock  Companies 

Value  on  the  Capital  in 

Capital      market  on  December  31, 1912  1904 

Banks. 

Shares drs.  115,000,000  drs.  180,500,000          drs.  124,240,000 

Debentures  .  . 123,216,400  134,222,000                   107,663,000 

Railways. 

Shares 62,000,000  59,000,000  1                 65  526000 

Debentures 16,000,000  13,000,000  / 

Electricity,  public  works. 

Shares 19,500,000  25,000,000  |                22  000  000 

Debentures 16,000,000  14,000,000  j 

Industrial   companies    19,000,000  23,000,000                      7,790,000 

Engineering  companies. 

Shares 21,000,000  16,000,000  J                 16000000 

Debentures 5,000,000  5,000,000  f 

Various  companies. 

Shares 50,000,000  39,000,000  j                  1650000 

Debentures 9,000,000  9,000,000  } 


455,716,400 


517,722,000 


344,869,000 


Year 
1903. 
1911. 


Mercantile  Marine — Sailing  Ships 

Number  of  sailing  ships 
1,035 
760 


Tonnage 

145,361 

101,459 


Comparative  table  showing  the  growth  in  tonnage  of  the  steamships  of  the  Hellenic 

Mercantile  Marine 


Year 
1886 
1892 
1903 
1907 
1909 
1911 


Number  of  steamers 

78 

93 
209 
258 
300 
347 


Net  tonnage 

32,127 

58,522 
201,651 
256,474 
296,354 
384,446 


The  Refugees 

The  government  has  nominated  a  special  commission  to  study  the  arrangements  made 
for  the  refugees  from  Thrace  and  Macedonia.  The  members  of  this  Commission  were 
Messrs.  Chomatianos,  Administrative  Commissioner  at  Kozani ;  Panayotopoulos,  Director 


394  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

of  the  Thessalian  Department1  of  the  Agricultural  Bank  in  the  Finance  Ministry ;  Dimi- 
triopoulos,  Departmental  Engineer,  and  Karaghinis,  an  official  in  the  Department  of  Agri- 
culture. The  questions  put  to  this  Commission  by  Mr.  Repoulis,  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
are  as  follows : 

(1)  Number  of  the  refugees. 

(2)  Place  from  which  they  came. 

(3)  Did  they   possess  property  which   they   have   sold   or  abandoned;    are  they 
peasant  proprietors  or  simple  day  laborers? 

(4)  Are  other  occupations  or  professions  represented? 

(5)  Specification  of  the  crops  cultivated   (cereals,  tobacco,  vines,  silk,  etc.). 

(6)  Pecuniary  position  of  the  refugees.    Have  they  ready  money  with  them? 

(7)  The   Commission    shall   examine   the    refugees   to   see   which    among   them 
could  find  work  as  peasant  proprietors  or  day  laborers,  and  which   ought  to  have 
land  granted  to  them  by  the  State,  as  being  former  owners. 

(8)  Which    demesne    lands    could    be    parcelled    out    for    this    purpose;    which 
individual  properties  could  be  utilized  in  the  same  way  and  under  what  conditions? 

(9)  The   Commission   shall   consider  the   state   of   centers   abandoned   by  their 
inhabitants  to  determine  how  they  would  be  affected  by  the  installation  of  refugees 
in  them. 

These  questions  afford  some  indication  of  the  work  of  the  Commission,  which  may 
extend  its  inquiry  to  cover  any  points  which  it  may  judge  to  be  desirable.    The  Commis- 
1   sion  is  controlled  by  Mr.  Dragoumis. 

Montenegro 

Cost  of  the  War  of  1912-1913 
1.    Maintenance  of  the  army 

(a)  Food  of  the  army  mobilized  in  Montenegro  in  the  Sandjak,  at  Berana 

and  Ipek,  and  of  volunteers fr.  27,839,500 

Horses  and  mules  requisitioned  and  attached  to  the  army 4,505,600 

Subventions  in  money  and  meal  given  to  poor  families  during  the  war, 

after  mobilization  of  all  able  bodied  men,  without  any  age  limit 5,000,000 

(b)  Pay  of  officers  including  indemnity  at  the  start  of  the  campaign  and 

supplementary    war    pay    5,500,000 

2.    Equipment  of  the  army 

(a)  Clothing  of  the  army  in  the  field 7,250,000 

(b)  Equipment  of  the  army  in  the  field 4,350,000 


APPENDICES 


395 


fr.  25,436,000 


3.     War  material  and  ammunition 
Artillery. 

Batteries  of  mounted  cannon,  batteries  of  field  cannon  and  batteries  of 

siege  cannon  with  their  respective  ammunition. 
Infantry. 

Quick   firing  machine  guns,   cartridges,   cartridge  boxes   and   muskets. 
Cost  of  ammunition,  the  loss  and  deterioration  of  the  said  material. 
Engineers. 

Loss  of  portable  works  and  artillery  parks;  purchase  of  material  for 

the  construction  of  temporary  bridges. 
Explosives,  construction,  repair  of  roads  during  the  war.    Deterioration 

of  telegraphic  and  signaling  apparatus,  projectors. 
Barracks,   hiring   of   houses,    stables,    depots,   etc.,    and   indemnity    for 

damage  sustained.  ] 

Purchase,   hire,   deterioration   and   maintenance    of    motors,    carriages 

and  carts    2,800,000 

Sanitary  Service. 

Cantonments,    sanitary    appliances   purchased     at     home    and    abroad. 

Medicines,  hospital  installations  and  ambulance  wagons 4,300,000 

4.    Cost  of  transport,  requisitions,  rvar  horses 

(a)  Transport,  by  railway,  water  and  road 2,900,000 

(b)  Requisition  of  animals,  carriages  and  other  means  of  transport 4.100,000 

(c)  Various  remounts,  horses  and  mules 300,000 

5.    Cost  of  maintenance  of  the  sick 

Hospital  installations   for  the  sick  and   wounded,  fixed   or  temporary 
ambulances 4,350,000 

6.    Miscellaneous 
Indemnities  for  burned  villages;  other  losses  and  damage 2,000,000 


Total . .  fr.  100,631,100 

This  account  does  not  include  indemnities  payable  to  the  families  of  dead  soldiers  and 
to  invalided  soldiers,  or  the  cost  of  prisoners  of  war. 

Servia 

Under  the  date  of  February  13,  1914,  the  Servian  Minister  of  War  has  communicated 
to  the  Skupshtina  the  following  figures  of  the  losses  of  the  Servian  army  during  the  two 
last  wars: 

Serbo-Turkish  war:     Dead,  5,000;  wounded,  18,000. 

Serbo-Bulgarian  war :    Dead,  7,000  to  8,000 ;  wounded,  30,000. 

Two  thousand  five  hundred  soldiers  died  as  a  result  of  their  injuries.  Between  11,000 
and  12,000  from  sickness,  and  4,300  from  cholera.  Among  the  latter,  4,000  died  during  the 
Serbo-Bulgarian  war. 


396 


REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 


Cost  of  the  War  of  1912-1913 
( June  i,  1913) 

The  following  account  was  presented  to  the  Financial  Commission  on  Balkan  Affairs, 
on  June  25,  1913: 

1.    Maintenance  of  the  army 

(a)  Food  of  the  army  f r.  226,324,000 

(b)  Pay  of  reserve  officers,  indemnity  at  the  opening  of  the  campaign 

and  supplementary  war  pay 26,595,500 


2.    Equipment  of  the  army 


(a)  Clothing  for  the  army  in  the  field... 

(b)  Equipment  for  the  army  in  the  field. 


40,254,000 
24,152,000 


3.     War  material  and  ammunition 

Artillery.  Charges  for  quick  firing  mountain  cannon  and  heavy  artillery; 
deterioration  of  mountain  cannon  and  heavy  artillery  material; 
deterioration  in  harnesses,  grooming  accessories,  etc. 

Infantry.    Consumption  of  cartridges,  loss  and  deterioration  of  muskets,  etc. 

Cavalry.  Deterioration  of  harness,  loss  and  deterioration  of  grooming  ac- 
cessories, etc. 

Engineers.  Deterioration  and  loss  of  portable  works  and  artillery  parks; 
explosives,  grooming  accessories,  aeroplanes,  automobiles,  bicycles, 
bridges,  signalling  apparatus,  wireless  telegraphy,  etc. 

Sanitary  Service.  Medicines  and  instruments,  tents  and  barracks,  hospital 
installation,  ambulance  trains,  etc. 


fr.  118,030,000 


4.  Cost  of  railway  transport 

5.  Requisition  of  animals,  carriages,  remounts  of  different  kinds. 

6.  Cost  of  maintenance  of  sick  and  wounded 

7.  Miscellaneous  . 


32,029,000 

87,969,000 

9,462,000 

10,000,000 


(a) 

(b) 
(c) 
(d) 


Total fr.  574,815,500 

Observations 
The  expenditure  enumerated  above  does  not  include: 

Pensions   to   the   families   of   officers   and   soldiers   killed   during  the   war   or   dying 

after  it. 

Cost  of  maintenance  of  prisoners. 
Expenses  necessitated  by  the  conquest  of  Albania. 
Indemnities  claimed  by  the  Oriental  Railroad  Company. 


(e)  Indemnities  due  in  respect  of  events  previous  to  the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  responsi- 

bility for  which  has  been  accepted  by  the  Ottoman  Government   (e.  g.,  seizure  of 
cannon  and  wagons). 

(f)  Cost  of  repatriating  troops. 


APPENDICES  397 

Another  estimate  of  the  cost  of  the  war  was  given  us  on  September  30,  by  Mr.  Stefano- 
vits,  Secretary  to  the  Servian  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  as  follows : 

Losses  incurred  by  Servia  in  the  Serbo-Turk  War  (1912-1913) 
I.    Loss  of  material 

1.  Expenditure  on  ammunition   fr.  28,849,060.80 

2.  Value  of  material  rendered  quite  unusable: 

(a)  Clothing  equipment  and  harness 49,502,698.17 

(b)  Garrison   expenses    14,841,530 

(c)  Sanitary  expenses   728,150 

(d)  Engineers , .  1,255,050 

(e)  Artillery 11,242,220 


Total fr.  77,569,648.17 

3.    A  certain  portion  of  the  unusable  material  may  be  regarded  as  lost: 

(a)  Sanitary . .  fr.  1,678,370 

(b)  Engineers 194,368 

(c)  Artillery 43,468,732 


Total fr.  45,341,470 

t  it1 

4.  Loss  of  animals,  expenditure  on  requisition  and  purchase  of  animals, 

cost  of  transport 71,528,867.66  " 

5.  Food    for   men    .r •.;>.  133,932,420.66 

6.  Food  for  animals 67,168,530 

7.  Pay  of  officers,  non-commissioned  officers,  etc 9,516,988 

8.  Mobilization  expenses 1,191,609 

9.  Cost  of  the  occupation  of  Albania  and  the  siege  of  Scutari 9,177,62S 

II.    Prisoners  of  war 

Maintenance  of  393  officers  and  officials  and  of  16,155  non-commissioned 

officers  and  soldiers fr.  1,604,638.7S 

The  various  totals  amount  to  445,880,858.04,  or  128,934,641.96  less  than  the  total  sub- 
mitted by   Servia  to  the  Financial   Conference  on   Balkan  Affairs,   on  June  25,   1913.    It 
should  further  be  noted  that  this  only  includes  expenses  up  to  that  date,  a  final  statement    ' 
is  still  to  be  presented  which  should  further  include  the  cost  of  maintenance  of  prisoners 
and  the  expenditure  necessitated  by  the  conquest  of  Albania. 

Servian  Public  Debt 
Loans 

1881.    Twenty  shares fr.  21,920,000 

1888.    Tobacco  shares 8,930,000 

1895.    4%   Rent   ...... 333,520,000 

1902.    5%   Loan 55,651,000- 

1906.    W2%  Loan   91,325,000 

1909.    4*/2%  Loan 147,709,500 


fr.  659,055,500 


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ANALYSIS  OF  THE  REPORT 


CHAPTER  I 
Origin  of  the  Two  Balkan  Wars 

1. ETHNOGRAPHY  AND  NATIONAL  ASPIRATIONS 

Before  the  advent  of  the  Turks  in  Europe,  the  two  Balkan  peoples  already  aspired  to 
leadership  in  the  peninsula. — From  the  tenth  to  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Bulgarians,  the 
Servians  and  the  Byzantines  usurped  this  leadership  in  turn,  without  accomplishing  the 
fusion  of  the  races. 

How  the  Turks  stamped  out  the  differences  between  the  nationalities  by  exterminating 
the  warrior  class  and  by  the  subordination  of  the  orthodox  cults  to  the  Greek  church,  which 
had  its  See  at  the  Phanar  (Constantinople). — The  raias  and  the  Greek  Patriarchy. — The 
Roum-mileti. — The  predominance  of  the  Greek  church  was  consummated  in  1765-1767, 
leaving  the  Slav  dissatisfied  and  the  Greek  priest  in  foreign  environments 21 

FIRST  MANIFESTATIONS  OF  THE  NATIONAL  IDEA 

Servia. — Its  situation  favors  the  development  of  the  National  Conscience. — First  insur- 
rection under  Kara  Georges  (1804-1813). — Its  failure. — Second  insurrection  headed  by 
Michel  Obrenovits  (1826). 

Servia  secures  a  degree  of  autonomy  under  the  Russian  protectorate,  and  in  1829  the 
title  of  hereditary  principality  under  the  suzerainty  of  the  Sultan 23 

Shortly  afterwards  (1830),  Greece,  thanks  to  the  action  of  the  patriots  and  of  the 
clergy,  secures  recognition  of  its  liberty. — The  Klephtal  and  the  Lestal 23 

Bulgaria  and  Macedonia. — Opening  of  the  first  Bulgarian  school  in  1852. — Struggles 
for  the  religious  independence  from  the  Greeks. — Rise  of  the  Bulgarian  exarchate  in  1870. — 
Proclamation  of  the  independence  of  the  Bulgarian  church  in  1872. — Organization  of  new 
dioceses. — The  exarchies  of  the  present  Bulgaria. 

Two  bishops  are  legally  established  in  Macedonia,  in  Okhrida  and  in  Uskub. — Henceforth 
the  Macedonian  question  is  on  the  tapis , 24 

Rivalries  in  Macedonia. — The  Greeks  contend  for  Macedonia,  whilst  the  Bulgarians  and 
the  majority  of  Servians  claim  Macedonia  and  Thrace  as  Bulgarian  territory. — Opinion 
of  the  publicists,  Lioubene  Karavelov  and  Vladimir  Yovanovits. — Servian  nationalist  move- 
ment claiming  Macedonia  for  Servia  and  organizing  Servian  schools  there. — The  govern- 
ment of  Belgrade  encourages  this  movement. — Displeasure  of  the  Bulgarian  press. — This 
movement  becomes  more  pronounced  as  the  Bulgarian  national  church  (exarchate)  extends 
its  sway,  and  Servia  renounces  its  aspirations  to  the  Adriatic. 

The  Bulgarians  organize  exarchist  dioceses  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  a  province  of 
ancient  Servia. — Union  of  the  Servians  and  Greeks  against  the  Bulgarian  church,  which 
remains  the  only  Slav  church  in  Macedonia 25 


400  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Servian  claims,  after  the  occupation  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina  by  Austria-Hungary. — 
Interview  of  Reichstadt  and  treaty  of  Berlin. — Austria  gives  to  Servia  the  hope  of  extend- 
ing its  sway  southward,  toward  the  territory  recognized  as  Bulgarian. — Servian  nationalists 
claim  the  whole  of  Macedonia. — How  Turkish  policy  favors  the  development  of  the  Servian 
schools. 

Side  by  side  with  the  ecclesiastic  movement,  rise  of  a  revolutionary  movement  born  of 
the  schools  and  hostile  to  the  Turkish  regime. 

Servians  and  Bulgarians  study  the  Macedonian  dialects  to  show  they  are  related  to  their 
own  language. 

The  rival  claims  to  Macedonia  are  therefore  based  upon,:  (a)  historic  rights;  (b) 
similarity  of  customs;  (c)  religion;  (d)  language 27 

Distinction  between  the  ethnic  groups  of  Macedonia,  according  to  Turkish,  Bulgarian 
and  Servian  statistics. — Different  elements. — Wide  divergencies  between  estimates  and 
calculations 28 

Like  difficulties  in  the  population  statistics  and  in  their  geographic  distribution. 

Recent  attempts  at  greater  accuracy  in  marking  the  limits. 

2. — THE    STRUGGLE    FOR    AUTONOMY 

FROM   THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE   NINETEENTH   CENTURY,   Two   PARALLEL   AND   RIVAL   IDEAS 
MANIFEST  THEMSELVES:  AUTONOMY  AND  THE  PARTITION  OF  MACEDONIA 

Efforts  of  Bulgaria  to  free  itself  from  the  Ottoman  yoke. — A  native  national  move- 
ment preceded  the  Bulgarian  liberation  of  1878. — The  haidouks. — The  Tchorbadjis. — Con- 
ception of  an  "integral  Bulgaria"  and  the  treaty  of  San  Stefano. — After  San  Stefano, 
Turkey  endeavors  to  subjugate  Macedonia. — Revolutionary  movements. — The  "central  com- 
mittee" of  Sofia  and  "the  internal  organization"  (1893). — Turkish  repression. — From, 
1897  to  1904,  the  struggle  becomes  more  accentuated  and  organized  against  the  Ottoman 
yoke v 31 

Intervention  of  European  Diplomacy. — First  project  for  reform. — Its  failure. — Turkey 
itself  proclaims  reforms. — Fresh  insurrections. — Decadence  of  "the  internal  organization." — 
From  1905  to  1907,  fruitless  attempts  to  organize  the  European  control  over  the  Turkish 
regime  in  Macedonia  : . . . . .../.. 32 

Last  Period  (1908-1912). — The  Young  Turks. — The  Young  Turk  .revolution.— "The 
Union  and  Progress  Committee." — Its  aim:  to  reconstruct  the  Turkey  of  the,  Caliphs,  and 
bring  about  the  "ottomanization  of  the  Empire";  its  struggle  against  the  Bulgarian  consti- 
tutional Clubs  and  Associations. — Economic  boycott  against  the  Greeks  .of  ^he  Empire. — 
Systematic  colonization  and  the  Mohadjirs. — Revolutipnary  movement.— Renaissance  of 
the  "Internal  organization/'— Repression  of  the  'cdmitad'ji  and  the  Young  Turk. 

Autonomy  of  Macedonia  has  become  impossible ;  two  necessary  conditions  are  lack- 
ing :  Indivisibility  of  Turkey  and  decentralization. . . .... ... . .... . . . . ..,,....,.  ...;,. .  *  .,>  v,-  35 

•••r.'f    »'  •        "'.  *fi  7    »:         T  *'—'>'      •«-*•*/    *-.' '  :  3?6t        iif.v  '".'">}  i'<     Ill's     .  Iv.J'J'  !..          '*-'      ,'<'''  '  '"•:'- 

3. THE  ALLIANCE  AND  THE  TREATIES      ,.(,-^v .j 

The  idea  of  partition.— Impossibility  of  forming"  ."a  hew  autonomous  of  independent 
unity  in  Macedonia. — Rivalries  and  competitions  between  the  European  powers^— The  idea 
of  a  Balkan  alliance  contrary  to  the  idea  of  partition. 

Conflicts  between  the  Balkanic  claims. — Fatal  consequences  of  the  Treaty  of 
Berlin  .  40 


APPENDICES  401 

The  first  and  only  true  purpose  of  an  alliance  between  the  Balkan  peoples:  to  prepare 
for  the  federation. — Present  signification  of  the  alliance;  it  implies  partition 40" 

Efforts  of  the  Greek  Ministers  Tricoupis  and  Delyanis,  in  1891  and  1897. — The  secret 
convention  between  Austria-Hungary  and  Roumania. — Bulgaria  surrounded  (1901)...  41 

At  Belgrade  and  Sofia,  renaissance  of  the  idea  of  a  Yougo-Slav  alliance. — Project  for 
a  defensive  and  offensive  alliance,  to  secure  the  autonomy  of  ancient  Servia  and  of 
Macedonia  (1904). — Difficulties  regarding  future  boundary  lines. — Failure  of  the  project 
for  an  alliance  42' 

Alliances  and  treaties. — Fruitless  attempts  of  Russian  diplomacy  in  behalf  of  the 
alliance. — The  growing  oppression  of  the  Young  Turks  toward  the  Bulgarians  and  Greeks- 
leads  to  closer  understanding  between  the  two  peoples  (1910). — The  Venizelos  proposition 
for  a  Graeco-Bulgarian  agreement  in  1911. — At  the  time  of  the  Italo-Turkish  war,  project 
for  an  alliance  between  Bulgaria  and  Servia  through  territorial  concessions  in  Macedonia. — 
The  negotiations  lead  to  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  treaty  of  February  29,  1912. — Provisions  of  the 
treaty. — Delimitation  of  the  dividing  line. — Precautions  and  foresight  of  Bulgarian- 
diplomacy  43- 

New  negotiations  with  Greece  for  a  "purely  defensive"  alliance. — Conclusion  of  the 
Graeco-Bulgarian  treaty  of  May  16,  1912. — Montenegro  enters  into  alliance  with  Bulgaria 
and  Greece 43- 

War  preparations. — Albanian  revolt  in  the  spring  of  1912. — Weakness  of  the  Turkish; 
committee,  "Union  and  Progress,"  which  promises  Albanian  autonomy. — Propositions  of 
partition. — Ineffectual  intervention  of  the  powers. — The  Balkan  allies  consolidate  their 
alliances  through  a  series  of  military  conventions. — Austro-Russian  proclamation  of  Septem- 
ber 25,  and  October  9,  1912. — Montenegro  declares  war  against  Turkey,  October  9. — On? 
October  17,  Turkey  declares  war  against  the  allies. 

Summary  of  the  causes  of  the  war:  (a)  weakness  and  improvidence  of  Turkey;  (b)' 
powerlessness  of  Europe;  (c)  consciousness  of  the  increase  of  strength  which  the  alliance- 
had  given  to  the  Balkan  states. 

Invasion  of  Turkish   territory 49' 

4. CONFLICT  BETWEEN  THE  ALLIES 

The  treaties  are  the  sources  of  discords  between  the  Balkan  nationalities. — Only  one 
solution  could  have  prevented  or  at  least  tempered  the  conflict  between  them :  to  maintain 
the  Turkish  territorial  statu  quo,  by  granting  autonomy  to  the  nationalities  without  changing 
the  sovereignties. — Why  this  solution  could  not  be  brought  about. — The  various  nationalities - 
struggle  for  their  existence. — The  "proclamation  to  our  brothers"  of  the  Macedonian  brother- 
hoods.— Irritation  of  the  press.  Disillusionment  of  the  populations  regarding  the  inten- 
tions of  the  occupants. — Bulgarian  agitators. — Revolutionary  elements  in  Macedonia: 
priests,  schoolmasters,  gangs,  "the  organization,"  secret  accusation 49 ; 

Disintegration  of  social  and  national  life  in  Macedonia. — Destruction  of  the  Bulgarian 
organization,  of  its  educational  system  and  religion. — Violence  shown  to  priests  and' 
bishops. — Neophyte,  Bishop  of  Veles. — Methodius,  Archimandrite  of  Uskub 51' 

Oppression  in  Macedonia. — Persecutions  inflicted  by  the  Servians  upon  the  Macedonian 
populations,  in  order  that  they  might  renounce  their  Bulgarian  nationality  and  become- 


402  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Servian. — Formula  of  renouncement. — The  Bulgarian  priest,  Nicolas  Ivanov.— Violence  com- 
mitted in  the  south  by  the  Greeks 52 

The  two  Bulgarian  points  of  view  in  conflict. — Reasons  for  pursuing  the  campaign 
after  Lule  Bourgas,  Salonica,  Monastir. — A  discussion  in  the  Skupshtina. — Greeks  and  Ser- 
vians mean  to  prevent  the  unification  of  the  Bulgarian  nationality. — Two  policies  are  pur- 
sued in  Bulgaria:  that  of  Mr.  Danev,  who  wishes  to  abide  by  the  terms  of  the  alliance, 
and  that  of  General  Savov,  who,  losing  sight  of  Macedonia,  covets  Adrianople  and  an  outlet 
to  the  sea  of  Marmara. — Distrust  of  the  Bulgarian  government  toward  the  Macedonians, 
and  the  comitadjis,  whom  it  sends  to  the  battle  lines  at  Tchachaldja. — Its  mistake. — It 
favors  the  partition  of  Macedonia  in  favor  of  the  Servians  and  Greeks. — Precursory  signs 
that  rouse  Bulgaria. — Bulgarian  illusions. — The  Balkanicus  pamphlet 56 

Servian  conquests  in  Macedonia 57 

The  war  between  the  allies. — Fruitless  efforts  to  prevent  it. — The  Graeco-Servian 
compromise. — The  "inspection"  of  General  Poutnik. — Signing  of  the  Graeco-Servian  con- 
vention of  May  16. — The  two  allies  fortify  their  positions  in  Macedonia. — Return  of  the 
Bulgarian  army  toward  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  frontier. — Final  attempts  at  diplomatic  nego- 
tiations.— Project  of  Mr.  Pachitch  for  revising  the  treaty. — Reasons  therefor.— Bulgarian 
pretensions. — Discord. — Possibility  of  an  understanding  between  Bulgaria  and  Roumania. — 
The  conditions. — Attitude  of  Austria  and  of  Russia. — Interview  at  Tsaribrod  between 
Pachitch  and  Guechov. — A  telegram  of  May  26  from  the  Emperor  of  Russia  reminds  the 
allies,  but  in  vain,  that  their  disputes  must  be  submitted  to  arbitration 58 

Opposition,  at  Sofia,  by  the  military  party  and  the  government,  hastens  events. — Tele- 
gram of  June  8  from  General  Savov  to  the  Commandant  of  the  fourth  army. — The  "popu- 
list" party  of  Sofia  against  the  war. — Council  of  the  Ministers  of  June  9. — Servia  accepts 
arbitration,  but  public  opinion  clamors  for  war. — On  June  15,  General  Savov  orders  the 
attack. — Telegrams  to  the  fourth  and  the  second  armies 65 

Military  events  and  operations  following  Bulgaria's  offensive  action. — Bulgaria's  isola- 
tion.— Defeats. — Loss  of  its  conquests. — The  Peace  treaty  of  Bucharest,  September  29, 
1913  .  68 


CHAPTER  II 
Greeks  and  Bulgarians 

1. POSITION    OF   THE    MACEDONIANS   DURING   THE    FIRST    WAR 

The  first  Balkan  war,  regarded  in  Europe  as  a  war  of  liberation,  gives  free  rein  to 
the  century-old  hatred  and  desire  for  revenge  of  Macedonia,  against  the  Turks. — The 
Mussulman  beys. — Inadequacy  of  the  measures  of  surveillance  taken  by  the  Bulgarian 
government. — Burning  of  Mussulman  villages. — The  territories  occupied  by  the  Servians 
and  the  Greeks  given  over  to  pillage 71 

Murdering  and  pillaging  in  the  district  of  Pravishta. — Baptchev,  the  chief  of  the  Bul- 
garian gang. — Compulsory  levies,  exactions,  acts  of  revenge  and  cupidity. — Ineffectual  in- 
structions received  from  Belgrade,  Sofia  and  Athens. 

Campaign  of  murders  at  Strumnitsa. — Testimony  given  before  the  Commission  of 
Inquiry. — Condemnation  of  the  responsible  Bulgarian  officers 73 

Crimes  committed  in  the  region  about  Kukush. — Toma  of  Istip,  leader  of  irregular 
bands,  and  the  commission  of  Bulgarian  notabilities. — Ransoms  demanded. — Donchev  and 
his  guerrilla  warfare. — Cruelties,  burnings  and  massacres  incident  thereto. — Acount  of 
Father  Michel,  chief  of  the  Kukush  Catholic  mission 74 

Bulgarian  responsibilities. — Freedom  left  to  the  comitadjis  at  Serres. — Massacre  at 
Dedeagatch. — Account  of  atrocities. — Efforts  of  certain  functionaries  and  of  the  govern- 
ment of  Sofia  to  put  an  end  to  excesses  and  pillaging.  Instructions  sent  to  courts- 
martial  75 

Methods  used  by  the  Bulgarians  to  convert  the  pomaks  to  Christianity  by  force. — The 
Holy  Synod  and  its  system  of  conversion 77 

2. CONDUCT  OF   THE   BULGARIANS   DURING   THE   SECOND   WAR 

Exaggeration  of  certain  accusations. — On  the  other  hand,  a  series  of  violences,  massacres 
and  burnings  charged  against  the  Bulgarians  during  their  retreat  to  the  southeast  of  Mace- 
donia.— Andartes  (organizations  of  Greek  insurgents) 78 

Massacres  at  Doxato. — Account  of  Mr.  Drobev,  prefect  of  Drama,  and  reports  from 
officers. — Doxato  becomes  a  Greek  center  of  insurrection. — Bulgarian  military  authorities 
permit  the  Turks  to  massacre  the  Greeks  at  Doxato 79 

Massacres  and  burning  of  Serres. — Doings  of  the  Greek  andartes. — The  five  notables 
put  under  arrest. — Accusations  recognized  by  the  commission  as  inexact. — Atrocities  com- 
mitted in  the  prison. — Account  of  a  witness. — After  the  departure  of  the  Bulgarian  garrison 
from  Serres,  the  Greek  Archbishop  becomes  governor  of  the  city. — Reaction  against  the 
Bulgarians. — The  Greek  militia  indulges  in  unheard  of  atrocities. — Massacre  of  prisoners. — 
Statements  from  witnesses  received  by  the  Commission. — Return  of  the  Bulgarian  army, 


404  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

again   committing   acts    of    revenge. — Burning   of    the   city    during   the    attack. — Responsi- 
bility          83 

The  events  of  Demir-Hissar. — Confusion  of  facts  and  conflict  of  testimony. — Excesses 
of  all  kinds  committed  on  all  sides. — The  Greek  account;  the  Bulgarian  account. — The  case 
of  the  Bishop  of  Demir-Hissar. — Refutation  of  certain  accounts  about  fingers  and  ears 
cut  off. — The  respective  responsibilities. — The  Bulgarians  driven  to  reprisals  that  degenerated 
into  acts  of  barbarism 92 

3. THE  BULGARIAN   PEASANT  AND  THE  GREEK  ARMY 

The  excesses  of  the  Greek  army. — Newspaper  campaign  in  Greece  against  the  Bul- 
garians.— Popular  hatred  between  the  two  peoples. — Popular  posters. — Mental  attitude  of 
the  Greek  army. — King  Constantine's  message  of  July  12. — The  Greek  campaign  assumes 
the  character  of  a  war  of  extermination  against  the  Bulgarian  nationals. — Fleeing  peasants, 
the  orphanage  and  the  hospital  at  Kukush,  fired  on. — After  the  capture  of  Kukush  by  the 
Greeks,  the  city  is  put  to  ruin. — Sacking  and  burning  of  the  city. — Violences  committed 
against  women  by  the  Greek  soldiers 95 

The  Greek  army  burns  forty  Bulgarian  villages  in  the  province  of  Kukush. — The 
bashi-bazouks. — Pillaging  of  the  village  of  Todorak. — Pillaging  and  burning  of  Akanjeli. — 
The  burning  of  Kukush  causes  the  Bulgaria^  peasants  to  depart. — Their  lamentable  flight 
through  the  devastated  country. — Wretchedness,  ruin,  and  families  scattered  and  ex- 
terminated. 

Panic  of  the  Macedonians  who  sought  refuge  in  Bulgaria. 

Accounts  and  testimony  gathered  by  the  Commission  of  Inquiry. — Account  of  a  refugee 
of  Akangeli  at  Salonica,  and  of  other  refugees  encountered  at  Sofia  (see,  annexes  36,  37, 
38,  39,  41,  42). 

The  horrible  account  of  Mito  Kolev,  a  young  boy. 

Testimony  of  Anastasia  Pavlowa  regarding  the  capture  of  Ghevgheli. — Statement  of 
Athanase  Vanov. — Barbarous  conduct  of  the  Greek  troops  wherever  they  pass. — Inquiry 
of  Professor  Miletits,  of  Sofia. — The  Greek  soldiers  respect  neither  the  convents  nor  the 
sisters. — The  Paliortsi  Catholic  convent. 

The  Greeks  can  not  justify  their  violence  on  the  ground  of  any  necessities  of  the  war. — 
Letters  from  Greek  soldiers  with  formal  confession  of  their  brutalities 104 

Last  exodus. — Exodus  of  the  Mussulmen  and  Greeks,  leaving  the  territories  yielded 
to  the  Bulgarians. — The  fugitives  camp  in  the  fields  and  are  frequently  deprived  of  food. — 
Testimony  and  accounts  gathered  by  the  Commission  regarding  this  lamentable  exodus. — 
The  Greek  military  authorities  of  Strumnitsa  give  explicit  orders  to  the  Greeks  and  to  all 
Mussulmen  to  leave  their  villages  and  emigrate  into  Greek  territory. — The  Greek  exodus 
seems  to  have  been  voluntary. 

The  Mussulmen  were  compelled  to  emigrate. — The  systematic  burning  and  sacking  of 
the  houses  and  villages  forced  them  to  flee. 

Emigration  of  the  Greek  inhabitants  of  Melnik. 

The  emigrants  of  Strumnitsa. — Not  all  are  Greeks. — Slav  elements  among  them. — 
Serious  problems  arising  with  regard  to  emigrated  Mussulmen  not  passed  into  Asia- 
Minor  107 

A  general  survey  of  the  morality  of  the  Balkan  peoples. — Their  barbarous  conception 
of  war  .  108 


CHAPTER  III 

Bulgarians,  Turks  and  Servians  ".  . 

1. — ADRIANOPLE 

Report  of  Mr.  Barlett  and  documents  published  by  the  Daily  Telegraph. — Inquiry  made 
by  Mr.  Machkov,  a  former  Russian  functionary, — He  is  far  from  being  impartial. — Inquiry 
made  by  a  member  of  the  Commission 109 

Capture  of  the  city. — Famine  reigns  in  the  besieged  city. — Soldiers  die  from  hunger. — 
Mortality  very  high. — Cases  of  cholera. — Pillaging  committed  by  the  Greek  population. — 
Sufferings  of  the  Turkish  prisoners  sent  by  Bulgaria  to  the  island  of  Toundja,  also  called 
Sarai  Eski. — They  eat  tree  bark. — The  Bulgarians  share  their  bread  with  the  prisoners. — 
Nights  spent  without  shelter  in  the  frozen  mud. — Numerous  prisoners  die  from  hunger 
and  cold. — Difficulty  of  feeding  55,000  prisoners  and  inhabitants. — Culpable  indifference 
of  the  Bulgarian  Commandant. — Pillage  of  Adrianople  by  the  Jews,  the  Armenians,  and 
especially  by  the  Greeks. — Repression  by  Bulgarian  patrols 110 

Thieves  disguised  as  soldiers. — The  patrols  allow  pillaging  to  continue,  provided  the 
"booty  is  shared. — Powerlessness  of  the  authorities. — Three  hundred  complaints  daily. — 
Perquisitions. — Return  of  stolen  articles. — Pillaging  of  the  library  of  the  mosque  of  the 
Sultan  Selim.  Order  reestablished  the  third  day  after  the  capture  of  the  city 115 

Bulgarian  administration. — Criticism  entered  against  the  Bulgarians  during  their  occu- 
pation of  four  months. — Exactions  and  molestations. — Extravagant  nationalism  of  the 
victors.— Arrogance  of  the  officers. — Hostility  of  the  Greek  population. — Strange  relations 
between  the  Commandant  and  the  Greek  Metropolitan. — Taxes  imposed  by  the  Bulgarian 
authorities. — Difficulty  of  housing  the  officers. — The  victors  appropriate  valuable  articles. — 
Confessions  of  the  officer  Nikov. — Sums  of  money  extorted  to  liberate  persons  under 
arrest , 117 

The  last  days  of  Bulgarian  occupation. — Sudden  departure  of  the  Bulgarian  authori- 
ties.— They  leave  cannon,  ammunition,  provisions. — False  accusations  of  rape  and  pillage. — 
Adrianople  left  without  authorities. — Thefts  and  burning. — Return  of  the  Bulgarians. — 
Arrest  and  drowning  of  forty  thieves. — Account  of  Pandeli. 

The  article  by  M.  Loti,  in  Illustration,  recounting  the  "last  night,"  does  not  conform 
to  reality. — The  Bulgarians  have  not  prepared  any  massacres. — Death  of  Rechid-bey. — His 
body  is  mutilated,  but  the  officer  was  not  tortured 122 

2. — IN    THRACE 

Inquiry  by  a  Member  of  the  Commission. — The  Bulgarians  massacre  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Turkish  quarter  in  the  village  of  Havsa,  and  do  violence  to  the  women,  without 
killing  them. — The  Christian  quarter  is  respected. — One  of  the  two  mosques  is  converted 
into  a  magazine  for  storing  ammunition. — The  other  one  is  damaged  and  defiled. — The 
cemetery  is  profaned  by  unknown  individuals. — After  the  departure  of  the  Bulgarians,  the 
Turks  take  revenge  by  demolishing  the  Bulgarian  village  of  Osmanly,  near  Adrianople. — 
Like  fate  visited  upon  the  villages  of  Has-Keui,  Souyoutli,  Iskender-Keui 123 


406  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

Return  of  the  Turks  into  Thrace. — Their  cruelties. — Massacres  and  destructions  com- 
mitted by  the  Arab  and  Kurd  cavalry. — The  Mussulman  soldiers  are  ordered  to  kill, 
burn,  destroy. — Accounts  of  Bulgarian  refugees. — Excesses  of  the  bashi-bazouks. — The 
Bulgarians  remaining  in  their  villages,  are  massacred  or  robbed. — Hatred  of  the  Mussulmans 
toward  the  Bulgarians  and  the  Armenians. — Return  of  Turkish  emigrants  who  pillage  and 
massacre  to  regain  possession  of  their  property. — Cruelties  committed  by  the  Mussulmans 
upon  reente ring  Rodosto  and  Malgara. — Galliopa  and  eleven  Christian  villages  are  burned. — 
At  Boulgar-Keui  and  Pichman-Keui,  the  Bulgarian  population  is  systematically  exterminated 
by  the  military  authorities. — The  native  Greeks  participate  with  the  Turks  in  these  massa- 
cres.— Similar  cruelties  at  Pitch-Bounar  and  at  Sivri-Tepe. — Accounts  of  witnesses. — 
Women,  little  girls  and  elderly  women  are  outraged  by  the  Greeks  and  the  Turks. — The 
same  violence  reappears  everywhere,  when  the  Mussulmen  resume  the  offensive 126 

Series  of  acts  of  savagery  committed  at  Simetli,  Karasli,  Kolibia,  Ahir-Keui,  Airobol, 
etc. — Children  are  cut  into  pieces. — Forty-five  villages  destroyed  around  Malgara. — The 
village  of  Derviche-Tepe  is  spared. — The  population  of  Zalouf  is  massacred. — In  passing 
across  the  Bulgarian  frontier,  the  Turks  destroy  the  villages  of  Soudjak,  Kroumovo, 
Vakouf,  Lioubimistsa,  etc. 

Massacres  at  Mustapha-Pasha. — Cruelties  of  the  bashi-basouks  in  western  Thrace      134 

3. THE   BATTLE   GROUND   OF   THE   SERBO-BULGARIAN    WAR 

The  Commission  of  inquiry  not  received  by  the  Servian  government. — Difficulties  en- 
countered in  securing  official  documents. — It  was,  however,  able  to  consult  the  reports  of 
the  General  Staff,  regarding  the  Bulgarian  atrocities. — On  the  other  hand,  inquiry  of 
Professor  Miletits  concerning  Servian  atrocities 135 

Bulgarian  and  Servian  violences. — Ravages  committed  by  the  Bulgarian  soldiers  at 
Knjazevac  and  surroundings. — Houses  destroyed,  women  outraged. — The  Servians  commit 
no  excesses  at  Belogradtchik. — This  is  an  exception. — In  the  Bulgarian  villages,  especially  at 
Kalougheri,  Bela,  Voinitsa  and  Vidine,  the  Servians  destroy  several  houses,  carry  off 
cattle  and  movables,  and  commit  murder  and  rape. — Like  excesses  in  the  regions  of 
Kratovo,  Kotchani,  Tikveche,  Radoviche,  where  the  armies  are  engaged. 

Causes  of  the  hatred  between  Servians  and  Bulgarians. — Servian  documents  (see, 
annexes  No.  83,  I,  III,  VII,  X). — Sudden  attack  during  the  night  of  June  16. — By  order, 
the  Bulgarian  soldiers  massacre. — The  bodies  of  victims  despoiled. — Wounded  and  prisoners 
are  exterminated. — Murder  of  Colonel  Arandjelovits. — List  of  Bulgarian  atrocities. — List 
of  Servian  atrocities  136 

Account  of  a  wounded  officer. — The  population  flees  before  the  Servians. — The 
Turks  return  to  their  villages  after  the  departure  of  the  Servians. — Pillages 
committed  by  the  vlachs  and  the  Roumanians  in  certain  villages  occupied  by  the  Ser- 
vians.— At  Vinitsa,  Blatets,  Bezicovo,  Gradets,  Loubuitsa,  houses  are  burned  by  the  Ser- 
vians, cattle  carried  off,  women  outraged  and  peasants  massacred. — Pillage  by  order  at 
Radoviche. — Officers  extort  money. — At  Chipkovitsa,  Novo-Selo,  Orahovitsa,  like  cruelties 
are  committed  ,  143 


CHAPTER  IV 
The  War  and  Nationalities 

1. EXTERMINATION,    EMIGRATION,    ASSIMILATION 

Considerations  in  regard  to  the  war  of  extermination. — Letter  from  a  Servian  soldier 
in  reference  to  the  repression  of  the  Albanian  revolt. — Article  from  the  Echo  de  Bulgaria 

in  reference  to  this  repression 148 

Confronted  by  the  invader,  large  numbers  of  the  population  emigrate :  135,000  Mussul- 
men  emigrants  pass  through  Salonica. — The  Islamic  Committee  favors  emigration  to  Ana- 
tolia.— The  Commission  interrogates  emigrants. — Bulgarian  emigration:  111,560  emigrants 
seek  refuge  in  Bulgaria;  100,000  of  Greek  nationality  flee  from  the  Bulgarian  administra- 
tion   :  150 

Forced  conversion  of  the  pomaks  by  the  Bulgarians. — Article  from  Le  Temps  con- 
cerning forced  conversions  in  Macedonia  and  in  Thrace. — Report  from  Mr.  Drakalovitz  re- 
garding baptism  imposed  by  violence  upon  the  inhabitants  of  Maleche  and  Berovo. — 
Article  by  Mr.  Strachimirov  criticizing  these  methods. — Manifesto  of  the  Bulgarian  govern- 
ment regarding  the  respect  due  to  the  conquered  populations. — Freedom  of  religion  and  of 
the  schools. — The  treaty  of  Bucharest  is  a  source  of  conflict 154 

2. — SERVIAN    MACEDONIA 

The  treaty  of  Bucharest  annexes  Bulgarian  populations  to  Servia. — Words  spoken  by 
Mr.  Skerlits  at  the  Skupshtina. — Discussion  about  the  "Liberal"  or  "Military"  regime  to 
be  applied  to  Servian  Macedonia 158 

Full  text  of  the  regulations  "dealing  with  public  safety"  applied  by  Servia  to  the  an- 
nexed territories  160 

Criticism  directed  against  this  exceptional  regime. — Draconian  edict. — Macedonians 
treated  as  rebels. — Resistance  of  the  opposition  parties  in  Servia. — 'Severity  of  the  ordinance 
tempered. — Legislative  power  of  the  prefects  diminished. — The  opposition  press  demands 
equality  for  the  annexed  countries. — Articles  from  the  Pravda  and  the  Novosti 162 

Abridged  constitution  of  November  23  for  Macedonia. — It  grants  neither  freedom  of 
the  press  nor  freedom  of  mass  gatherings,  nor  the  right  of  voting  nor  of  eligibility. — Ethnic 
unification. 

Elimination  or  assimilation  of  allogeneous,  especially  Bulgarian  elements. — Measures 
adopted  against  the  chiefs  of  the  National  church  in  Macedonia. — Statement  of  the  six  digna- 
taries  of  the  Bulgarian  church. — The  Bulgarian  Archbishops  are  expelled  from  Macedonia 
at  the  opening  of  the  second  war. — Details  concerning  the  expulsion  of  the  Archbishops  of 
Uskub  and  Veles  165 

Arrest  and  expulsion  of  the  Archbishops  of  Monastir  and  Okhrida. — Declaration  to  the 
Commission  by  the  Metropolitan  Boris. — At  Salonica,  the  Greeks  imprison  Bishop  Hilarion 
and  hold  him  as  hostage. 

The  forced  departure  of  the  Bishops  marks  the  end  of  the  exarchist  church  and  the 
official  existence  in  Macedonia  of  the  Bulgarian  nationality 168 


408  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

The  Servians  in  Macedonia. — Guerrilla  bands. — The  "Black  Hand"  and  its  crimes. — 
Sinister  activity  of  these  bandits  tolerated  by  law.  The  accomplices  of  the  Servian  authori- 
ties.— Every  city  has  its  "Black  Hand"  gang. — Villages  terrorized  particularly. — Responsible 
power  and  irresponsible  power. — Serbomaniacs  and  Graecomaniacs. — Personal  acts  of  re- 
venge.— Letter  published  by  the  Manchester  Guardian  relating  the  misdeeds  of  the  Servian 
functionaries  and  terrorists  169 

Excessive  Serbization  in  the  northwest  of  Macedonia. — Violences  of  Voulovits,  gang 
chief. — The  war  against  Bulgarism. — At  Tetovo,  and  especially  at  Uskub,  Bulgarians  are 
forced  to  enlist. — Resistance. — Systematic  persecution  of  the  Bulgarian  element. — Patriotic 
statistics. — Communal  authorities  are  ordered  to  register  Bulgarians  as  Servians. — Resistance 
offered  by  priests  and  schoolmasters. — Acts  of  violence  committed  against  the  Bulgarians 
of  Uskub  174 

The  17th  of  June. — Numerous  imprisonments  at  Uskub,  Tetovo,  Koumanovo,  Palanka. — 
Priests  and  notables  forced  to  declare  themselves  Servians. — Ceremony  of  reconciliation  in 
the  cathedral  of  the  Holy  Virgin. — The  prisoners  of  Mitrovitsa  swear  allegiance  to  Servia. — 
Several  Bulgarian  schoolmasters  refuse  to  remain  in  the  service  of  Servia  and  are  sent  back 
to  Sofia  174 

The  Serbization  of  Veles. — Methods  the  same  as  those  resorted  to  at  Uskub. — Expul- 
sion of  the  exarchist  dignitaries. — Persecutions. — Acts  of  violence. — Arrests. — Assassinations. 

Those  adhering  to  Servian  nationality  are  liberated. — The  schoolmasters  consent  to  be- 
come Servian  174 

The  Serbization  of  Monastir. — Same  method. — Six  hundred  arrests  upheld  prior  to  the 
defeat  of  the  Bulgarian  army. — Text  of  the  declaration  the  Servians  compelled  the  Mace- 
donian Bulgarians  to  sign. — The  police  secure  signatures. — Those  refusing  to  sign  are 
poisoned. — Expulsion  of  schoolmasters  175 

War  against  Bulgarism  in  Prilepe. — Proclamation  by  the  commandant  of  the  place.      177 
Arbitrary  statistics  at  Resen. — Acts  of  violence. — Arrests. — Expulsions 178 

At  Krouchevo,  similar  violence,  illegal  exactions,  house  searching. — Imprisonment  of 
notables. — Full  powers  of  the  comitadjis. — Murder  of  the  Bulgarian  chief  Beloucheto. — His 
head  exhibited  from  the  threshold  of  the  prison. — The  sub-prefect  threatens  with  the  same 
fate  whoever  declares  himself  Bulgarian ^ 180 

At  Okhrida,  at  Debar,  on  the  Albanian  frontier  line,  Serbization  by  force. — Closure  of 
the  schools. — Disarmament;  requisitions;  violence,  executions,  etc. — Organization  of  gangs. — 
Forced  renouncement  to  the  exarchate. — Project  for  a  union  with  the  Holy  See. — Prepara- 
tion for  armed  resistance  to  proclaim  the  autonomy  of  Macedonia. — Revolt  organized  by 
Mr.  Matov. — The  Servian  garrisons  retreat. — Okhrida,  Debar  and  Struga  fall  into  the  hands 
of  the  insurgents. — Terrible  repression  of  the  insurrection. — 25,000  Albanians  in  flight. — 
Notables  imprisoned  and  shot. — Villages  burned 180 

The  Commission  at  Belgrade. — Pacification  does  not  seem  durable. — Servian  press 
optimistic. — Article  from  the  Piemont  upon  conditions  at  Istip. — Articles  regarding  condi- 
tions at  Monastir. — Attendance  at  the  Servian  schools  compulsory,  under  penalty  of  being 
fined. — Youth  forbidden  to  leave  the  country. — The  police  pillage,  beat  and  massacre  Bul- 
garian, Turkish  and  Albanian  peasants. — Murder  of  priests  and  schoolmasters;  destruction 
of  city  quarters  182 

Evil  results  of  the  Servian  methods. — Responsibility  of  the  Administration. — Servia  i> 
short  of  functionaries  for  the  annexed  countries.  The  population  is  subjugated,  but  not 


APPENDICES  409 

conquered. — Bulgarian  schoolmasters  enrolled  as  Servian  functionaries  or  gradually  replaced 
by   Servian   masters. — Light   school   attendance 182 

The  annexed  population. — General  dissatisfaction. — Terrorism  does  not  decrease. — Sum- 
mary of  an  article  from  the  Mir  regarding  murders,  exactions,  pillages,  innumerable  acts 
of  cruelty. — Servia  does  not  grant  to  the  annexed  people  the  guarantees  adopted  by  the 
conference  of  Bucharest. — Apprehensions  of  the  Servian  press. — Difficulties  in  prospect. — 
Bulgarian  comitadjis. — Organization  in  the  United  States  of  Macedonian  conspirators  de- 
manding autonomy  for  their  enslaved  fatherland. — The  annexed  people  enjoy  less  liberty 
than  under  the  absolutist  Turkish  regime 184 

3. GREEK  MACEDONIA 

The  Commission  is  less  informed  than  about  Servian  Macedonia. — The  methods  are 
identical :  forcible  assimilation  of  the  Bulgarian  elements ;  systematic  extermination  of  the 
Mussulmans. — The  process  is  applied  with  greater  vigor 186 

At  Salonica. — Difficulties  encountered  by  the  Commission  and  hostility  of  the  Greek 
population. — During  the  common  occupation  of  Salonica,  the  relations  between  Greek 
and  Bulgarian  military  authorities  are  very  strained. — Opening  of  hostilities. — Departure  of 
General  Hessaptchiev. — The  summons  of  General  Calaris. — Intervention  of  the  French  con- 
sul.— Mr.  Lazarov  requests  permission  to  communicate  with  his  superiors;  he  is  put  under 
arrest. — Houses  destroyed  by  cannon. — Bulgarian  soldiers  are  arrested  unconditionally. — 
They  are  placed  in  the  lowest  part  of  the  hold  of  ships  and  transported  to  Greek  for- 
tresses    187 

Cruelties  experienced  by  the  Bulgarian  population. — Account  of  Jean  Ratchkovits,  an 
Austrian. — His  arrest,  and  imprisonment  in  the  coal  storerooms;  he  relates  that  some 
prisoners  were  shot,  and  others  drowned. — Accounts  of  Louroudjiev  and  Doukov,  Bul- 
garians.— The  latter,  prisoner  on  board  the  Catherine,  witnessed  the  assassination  of  the 
Archimandrite  Eulogius. — This  murder  is  confirmed  by  another  eye  witness,  Basile  Lazarov. — 
Several  other  prisoners  are  thrown  overboard 188 

House  searching  and  arbitrary  arrest. — Cruelty  and  cupidity. — The  prisoners  are  robbed. 
— Ransoms. — Those  unable  to  pay  are  killed. — Arrest  of  Deputy  Karabelev;  his  strong-box 
is  pillaged. — Greek  soldiers  search  Bulgarian  houses. — "Money  or  death." — The  Cretan  police 
defend  the  Bulgarians. — Account  of  Miss  Ivanova. — Violation  of  the  Red  Cross  Conven- 
tions.— Account  of  the  youthful  Demetrious  Risov. — Intervention  by  the  French  consul  saves 
his  family  192 

Greek  statistics  and  Bulgarian  statistics. — Divergences  regarding  the  number  of  Slavs 
annexed. — The  secret  Graeco-Bulgarian  treaty  contains  no  trace  of  frontiers. — Excitation 
to  Hellenic  Irredentism. — Organization,  propoganda,  petitions  of  the  Greek  diasporas. — Con- 
flict between  the  military  and  liberal  parties. — Discourse  of  Mr.  Venizelos  at  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies  195 

Relations  between  the  Greek  occupants  and  the  native  population  in  the  region  around 
Castoria. — The  Greeks  mean  to  ignore  the  Bulgarian  language. — Publication  of  advertise- 
ments and  appeals  to  the  population  in  Greek,  in  Hebrew,  or  in  Turkish. — Assimilation  by 
force. — Formal  retraction. — The  Bulgarians  are  forced  to  declare  themselves  Greek. — Two 
types  of  declarations. — Conversions  forced  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet. — Inhabitants  of  vil- 
lages are  imprisoned. — Mahommedan  pomaks  of  Carveni  are  objected  to  as  Greeks 197 

Disarmament  of  the  population. — Several  persons  are  arrested,  beaten,  put  to  death. — 
The  clergy,  the  schoolmasters  and  Bulgarian  functionaries  are  persecuted. — The  Bulgarian 


410  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

metropolis  of  Castoria  is  searched  by  the  police  and  occupied  by  the  soldiers. — Term  of 
forty-eight  hours  granted  priests  and  soldiers  to  leave  Greek  territory. — ."Let  the  Bulgarians 
return  to  Bulgaria." — "No  more  Bulgarians  in  Greek  Macedonia" 198 

Similar  methods  of  expulsion  or  of  forcible  assimilation  applied  by  the  Greeks  to  the 
inhabitants  of  Vodena,  Vestchitsa,  Tsarmarinovo,  Piskopia,  Arsene,  Saint-Elias,  Ver- 
tecopo. — Imprisonment  of  priests  and  notables. — Confiscation  of  churches. — Slav  books  and 
images  are  burned.— List  of  the  prisons  in  Salonica,  by  Mr.  Atanasov. — One  hundred  and 
thirty  men  confined  in  a  single  chamber. — Atrocities 199 

The  city  of  Kailare  and  certain  villages  have  especially  suffered  from  the  Greek 
administration. — Forced  conversions. — The  Bulgarian  chief  forbidden  to  administer  the 
Holy  Sacraments. — Expulsion  of  schoolmasters. — Attendance  at  Greek  schools  demanded 
under  penalty  of  punishments  to  be  visited  upon  the  parents. — Requisitions  without  pay 
or  receipt. — Murder,  rape,  fires 200 

Assimilation  has  made  less  progress  in  Greek  than  in  Servian  Macedonia,  due  to 
ethnic  differences. — The  feeling  of  Slav  affinity  is  maintained  in  Servia. — Tendency  of  the 
Belgrade  government  to  protect  the  Slav  element  in  Greek  Macedonia 200 

Relations  between  the  Greeks  and  the  Mussulmen  in  Macedonia. — Evolution  of  these 
relations. — At  the  beginning  of  the  occupation,  the  Turks  aid  the  Greeks  against  the  Bul- 
garian comitadjis. — Persecution  of  the  Mussulmans  after  the  treaty  of  Bucharest. — Mass 
arrests  in  Poroi,  Langadina,  Saryghiol,  Sakhna,  Serres,  Pravishta,  Kailare,  Ostrovo,  Vodana, 
Negouche  Karaferia,  Yenidje-Vardar. — 5,000  Mussulmen  prisoners  at  Salonica. — Cities  and 
villages  destroyed. 

Exodus   of  the  population. — Expulsions. 

Articles  from  the  Jeune-Turc,  Mir,  Tasfiri-Efkiar  and  the  £cho  de  Bulgarie 201 


CHAPTER  V 
The  War  and  International  Law 

1. THE   WAR  BETWEEN   THE   ALLIES   AND   THE   OBSERVANCE   OF   THE   TREATIES 

The  laws  of  war,  and  in  general,  the  essential  principles  of  international  law  have 
been  flaunted  by  all  the  belligerents. 

Non-observance  of  the  treaties. — The  Servian  statesman  and  the  professors  invoke  the 
clause  pacta  sunt  servenda  rebus  sic  stantibus  to  justify  their  conduct. — The  "Balcanicus" 
book. — To  what  extent  is  the  clause  rebus  sic  stantibus  applicable  to  the  demand  for  revision 
and  to  the  violation  of  the  treaty? — The  book  of  Mr.  Erich  Kauffmann. — Articles  from  the 
Belgrade  Dielo. — Opinion  of  the  Commission. — The  Servians  and  Bulgarians  have  con- 
sidered the  question  as  a  "question  of  force"  (eine  Machtfrage). — Dangerous  consequences 
from  the  method  of  applying  the  rebus  sic  stantibus  clause  as  conceived  by  the  Servians. — 
The  principle  of  the  obligatory  force  of  the  treaties,  disregarded  by  the  Balkan  allies,  was 
approved  on  January  17,  1871,  at  the  London  conference 208 

2. THE  WAR  AND  THE  OPENING  OF  HOSTILITIES 

The  question  of  the  opening  of  hostilities  as  it  was  regulated  at  The  Hague. — Article 
4  of  the  Serbo-Bulgarian  treaty  provides  for  recourse  to  mediation  or  to  arbitration  in 
cases  of  dispute. — The  Servians  invoke  this  clause  and  forthwith  disregard  it. — The  responsi- 
bilities of  Bulgaria. — Resort  to  ruse. — Mendacious  accounts. — Protest  of  Mr.  Tschvec,  Bul- 
garian Ambassador  at  Belgrade 210 

3. VIOLATION    OF    THE    LAWS    AND    CUSTOMS    OF    LAND    WARFARE.      ORDERS    ISSUED 

BY    GENERAL    SAVOV 

The  belligerents  have  generally  disregarded  the  Hague  Convention  concerning  the  laws 
and  customs  of  land  warfare,  a  convention  which  they  had  approved. — The  Bulgarian 
reserves. 

Instructions  to  be  issued  to  the  "armed  land  forces,"  specified  in  articles  1  and  3  of  the 
convention  of  1907. — With  rare  exceptions,  the  convention  was  disregarded  by  the  allied 
armies. — Difficulties  encountered  by  the  Commission  in  the  course  of  its  inquiry. — Efforts 
of  different  Bulgarian  army  chiefs  for  the  observance  of  the  convention  of  1907 211 

Orders  issued  on  October  14,  1912,  by  General  Savov  to  the  twenty-second  Thracian 
infantry  regiment. — Orders  issued  December  13,  1912,  to  army  No.  69  of  Lozengrad  (Kirk- 
Kilisse)  212 

King  Constantine's  telegram   concerning   reprisals 214 

4. PRISONERS  OF  WAR;  ILL-TREATED  OR  PUT  OUT  OF  THE  WAY 

Dispositions  of  the  Hague  Convention  regarding  prisoners  of  war  (art.  4,  5,  6  and 
23). — Geneva  Convention  (art.  2). — Prisoners  are  killed  during  the  Balkan  war. — Docu- 
ments.— Account  from  the  Servian  newspaper  Radnitchke  Novine. — Prisoners  are  killed 
on  the  march. — Account  of  Hakki-Kiamil,  a  Turkish  prisoner,  regarding  the  conduct  of" 
the  Bulgarians  at  Adrianople 214 

Owing  to  foreign  attendants,  prisoners  are  respected  and  cared  for  in  the  hospitals. — 
Able-bodied  prisoners  interned  in  various  localities  were  well  enough  treated. — The  labor 


412  REPORT  OF  THE  BALKAN  COMMISSION 

of  the  prisoners. — It  is  unremunerated. — Turkish  soldiers  made  to  work  at  the   fortifica- 
tions erected  against  Knjazevac. — Prisoners  of  war  in  Greece.— Greek  prisons. — Testimony 

of  Mr.  Lazarov :  his  account  published  October  24  in  the  Mir 215 

Treatment  of  the  Bulgarian  officers  in  the  Pireus. — Account  of  Major  Lazarov. — 
Telegram  sent  to  Mr.  Venizelos. — Sufferings  inflicted  upon  civilian  prisoners,  old  men  and 
children. — Violation  of  the  convention  of  1907 220 

5. THE  USE  OF  FORBIDDEN  BOMBS  AND  EXPLOSIVES 

Article  23  of  the  Hague  Convention  of  1907. — The  freedom  to  inflict  injury  left  to 
the  belligerents  is  illimited. — Turkish  and  allied  soldiers  use  "dum-dum"  bullets 220" 

The  Bulgarians. — Official  reports  from  the  Servian  General  Staff  upon  this  matter. — 
Use  of  dynamite  bombs. — Testimony  of  Colonel  Marinkovits. — Reports  from  physicians- 
and  officers  221 

The  Greeks.  Proces-verbal  written  by  Doctors  Foramiti,  Kohl  and  Mihailovsky. — 
Verbal  note  addressed  by  the  Bulgarian  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  to  the  legations  of  the 
six  great  powers  in  Sofia,  July  24. — Inspection  of  Greek  bullets  and  cartridges 222 

6. VIOLATIONS    OF    THE    FLAG    OF    TRUCE 

Articles  23  and  32  of  the  Hague  Convention  concerning  the  flag  of  truce. — Attacks 
made  upon  the  bearers  of  the  flag  of  truce. — The  Uskub  telegram  of  July  22  in  the  Odyeke. — 
Bulgarian  bearer  of  a  flag  of  truce  made  prisoner  by  the  Servians ;  the  case  of  Lieutenants 
Bockov  and  Kiselitsky. — Dr.  Maguenev,  parliamentarian  officer,  is  not  protected. — The  case 
of  Captain  Minkov. — The  Servians  put  him  to  death 224 

7. FATE  OF  THE  SICK  AND  WOUNDED 

Articles  21  and  27  of  the  Hague  Convention. — Their  violation. — Report  of  the  Russian 
doctor,  M.  P.  G.  Laznev,  of  the  Bulgarian  hospital  at  Serres. — Account  of  witnesses  relating 
the  massacre  of  sick  persons. — The  Servian  artillery  bombards  the  Bulgarian  hospital  of 
Vidine. — Proces-verbal  of  Mr.  Nojarov  and  Dr.  Bogoyev 226 

8. ATTACK  AND   PILLAGE  OF  NONCOMBATANTS 

Articles  25  and  28  of  the  Hague  Convention. 

Restrictions  placed  upon  the  Bulgarian  pillage  of  Adrianople. — Sacking  of  Knjazevac. — 
Culpability  of  the  military  authorities. — Pillaging  of  villages. — Testimony  of  Mr.  R.  Wadham 
Fisher. — Bombardment  of  Charkeni  and  Mireftchi 229 

9. TRIBUTE  AND  ARBITRARY  REQUISITIONS 

Articles  48,  49,  51,  and  52  of  the  Hague  Convention.— The  Servians,  and  especially  the 
Greeks,  have  violated  the  principles  of  international  law. — Numerous  examples. — The  case 
of  the  aged  Mitskov. — The  Servian  soldiers  in  the  village  of  Barbarevo;  tortures  visited 
upon  the  inhabitants. — Movable  property  is  sent  either  to  Servia  or  to  Greece. — "Sub- 
scriptions" for  the  Red  Cross  fell  into  Servian  hands 230' 

10. ASSAULTS    AGAINST    PERSONS,    PROPERTY    AND    RELIGIOUS    BELIEF 

Articles  45,  46  and  47  of  the  Hague  Convention. — Isolated  attempt  of  the  Bulgarians 
to  conform  to  the  laws  of  war. — From  the  beginning  of  occupation,  annexation  is  pre- 


APPENDICES  413 

pared. — The  occupying  army  regards  the  population  as  a  conquered  people. — The  honor 
of  women  is  never  respected. — Human  life  and  private  property  no  longer  respected. — 
The  so-called  Roumanian  army  of  "peaceful  occupation." — Its  pillages  and  robberies...  231 

Mosques  and  churches  destroyed. — Tombs  profaned. — Feeling  at  Havsa. — Turkish 
sacrileges  at  Silivri. — Protest  of  Dr.  Ismail-Mail. — Violation  of  article  18  concerning 
respect  for  religious  convictions  and  the  practice  of  worship 232 

Influence  of  the  Commission  of  Inquiry. 

The  question  raised  by  the  Servian  newspaper  Targovinski  Glasnik  regarding  the 
Commission  of  Inquiry. — It  is  not  a  case  of  an  "international  arbitrary  act." — The  Com- 
mission does  not  exercise  "juridical  function,"  but  represents  public  opinion. — It  is  of  a 
private  nature. — Facilities  extended  to  it  in  Bulgaria  and  in  Greece 234 

Advantages  that  would  accrue  from  an  International  Commission  of  Inquiry  appointed 
to  the  belligerents  in  the  course  of  wars 234 


CHAPTER  VI 
Economic  Consequences  of  the  War 

Threats  of  war. — Depreciation  in  stocks  and  bonds — Tightening  of  the  money  market. — 
Business  depression. — Mobilization. — Halt  in  productive  labor. — Requisitions. — Borrowing 
and  purchasing  abroad. — Destruction  of  lives,  of  material  products  and  wealth. — Ruinous 
bombardments. — Regions  laid  waste. — Exodus  of  the  populations. — What  the  Commission 
saw. — Number  of  dead,  wounded,  sick,  maimed. — Lack  of  statistics  concerning  Turkish 
losses. — Impossible  to  estimate  the  losses  in  noncombatants 235 

Material  losses. — Greek  estimates. — Continued  devastations. — Millions  in  losses. — Con- 
sequences of  the  war  to  the  great  powers. — Effect  of  these  consequences  less  marked  in 
the  Balkan  States. — In  Servia,  in  Bulgaria,  and  in  Greece  the  women  cultivate  the  fields. — 
Small  sized  estates. — Abundant  harvests. — Exportation  of  cereals. — Operations  of  the 
savings  banks. — Withdrawal  of  deposits. — Restriction  of  reimbursement. — No  panic. — Ex- 
tension granted  to  make  payments. — Slackening  in  transportation. — Usury  and  destruction 
of  material. — No  revenues. — Estimate  of  the  losses / 244 

Industrial  production  is  arrested. — No  panic  in  Greece. — The  Greeks  abroad. — Their 
attitude  during  the  war. — Help  in  men  and  money. — Emigration. — Influx  of  capital  coming 
from  the  emigrants. — No  money  crisis. — Economic  family  resistance  in  the  Balkan 
countries 250 

The  refugees. — Their  quarters  in  Salonica  and  Sofia. — Misery  and  sickness. — Financial 
difficulties. — Heavy  charges  to  lodge,  feed  and  transport  emigrants. — Distribution  of  food.— 
Utilization  by  Greece  of  90,000  permanently  established  refugees. — Founding  of  villages. — 
Apportioning  of  land  in  Greece  and  Bulgaria 252 

Status  of  foreign  stockholders  in  the  annexed  territories. — Nationality  of  the  com- 
panies.— Conditions  of  mine,  harbor,  and  forest  concessions. — Questions  to  be  solved. — 
Railroad,  street  car,  public  lighting,  motor  power,  hydraulic,  highways  and  public  build- 
ings concessions  258 

Decrease  in  taxes. — Servian  public  revenues  grow  smaller. — Military  expenses  of  the 
Balkariic  belligerents. — Exaggeration  of  the  figures  furnished  to  the  Commission. — Treasury 
exhausted. — Requisition  billets. — Their  consolidation. — Appeal  to  European  credit. — Increase 
of  public  debt. — Status  of  the  treasury  in  Greece,  Servia  and  Bulgaria 260 

Economic  consequences  of  the  territorial  changes. — Partial  mobilization  in  Russia  and 
in  Austria-Hungary. — Intervention  of  Roumania  in  the  second  war. — Estimated  value  of 
the  conquest. — Borrowings  of  the  Balkan  States. — One  billion  is  asked  of  European  sav- 
ings.— Duty  of  European  governments 263 


CHAPTER  VII 

Moral  and  Social  Consequences  of  the  War 
Conjectures  About  the  Future  of  Macedonia 

1. MORAL    AND    SOCIAL    CONSEQUENCES 

Frightful  chapter  of  horrors. — War  excites  to  instincts  of  murder  and  cruelty. — Com- 
mon struggle  against  the  Turks. — The  reasons. — Struggle  between  former  allies. — Burnings, 
murders,  acts  of  violence,  ravages. — Disregard  of  right  and  justice. — Violation  of  the  laws 
-of  humanity. — Ardor  of  the  troops  on  departing  and  on  returning. — Hospitals  filled  with 
wounded  and  sick. — A  general  inclination  to  hatred,  violence,  rape  and  pillage  is  incul- 
cated.— Deplorable  effects  upon  the  victims  and  executioners. — Nefarious  consequences  of 
the  atrocities  which  officers  ordered  soldiers  to  perpetrate. — Attempts  against  the  nationali- 
ties.— Social  and  moral  disorder. — Fearful  destructions. — Unatonable  hatred. — The  greatest 
crimes  in  modern  history. — Deformation  of  the  moral  sense. — Debasement  of  character.— 
Hope  of  revenge. — Increase  of  the  unproductive  garrison  population. — Waste  of  human 
life 265 

2. CONJECTURES   IN    REGARD   TO   THE    FUTURE   OF    MACEDONIA 

Political  guarantees  offered  Macedonia  by  the  annexing  states. — Education  in  the 
Balkans. — Agricultural  and  domestic  schools. — Decrease  in  the  number  of  illiterates. — Need 
of  developing  cleanliness,  sanitation,  home  comfort. — Uncleanliness  and  disorder  in  the 
villages. — Role  of  the  schoolmasters. — Their  duty  toward  the  families — Instruction  in  neat- 
ness and  decency. — Inferior  condition  of  women. — Need  to  educate  her,  and  spare  her 
too  heavy  work  268 

Advantages  of  a  liberal  and  tolerant  administration. — Social  and  professional  educa- 
tion.— Kindness  and  sympathy. — Protection  of  the  annexed  populations. — Need  of  work,  of 
confidence  and  peace. — Role  of  the  church. — It  must  teach  religion  and  morality  instead 
of  exercising  a  narrow  nationalist  propaganda. — The  Commission  is  not  optimistic. — 
Peace  in  the  Balkans  is  uncertain. — Hostility  and  jealousy. — Tendency  to  militarism. — 
Heavy  military  burdens. — Strained  relations. — Community  of  interests. — Improvement  in 
the  relations  between  the  neighboring  peoples  is  necessary. — Duty  of  the  civilized  world 
toward  the  Balkans. — Recourse  to  arbitration. — The  peace  palace 269 


<  >#~  d{*u? 

ff   ' 

/*-" .- 


FIG.  50. — FACSIMILE  OF  \  LETTER  WRITTEN  BY  A  GREEK  SOLDIER  ABOUT  THE  WAR. 
[See  Letter.  16,  page  311.] 


ffit***4?#H 


FIG.  51. — ENVELOPE  OF  THE  LETTER  OPPOSITE. 


The  Balkan  States  as  They  Now  Are 

To  assist  the  reader  of  the  Report  of  the  International  Commission  to  a  clear  understanding  of  the 
results  of  the  second  Balkan  war,  so  far  as  concerns  the  geographical  distribution  among  the  Balkan  States 
and  Greece  of  territory  formerly  Turkish,  there  has  been  inserted  on  the  opposite  page  the  latest  map  of  these 
countries,  as  their  boundaries  were  determined  by  the  Treaty  of  Bucharest.  This  map  was  prepared  by 
J.  G.  Bartholomew,  of  The  Edinburgh  Geographical  Institute,  by  whose  courtesy  it  is  here  printed.  By 
comparing  this  map  with  the  two  that  appear  on  page  70,  the  reader  can  obtain  a  more  graphic  idea  of 


the  nature  and  political  effect  of  this  territorial  redistribution.  It  should  also  be  compared  with  the 
two  maps  which  follow  it,  showing  respectively  the  Bulgarian  and  the  Servian  aspirations  regarding  the 
apportionment  of  Macedonia,  prior  to  and  during  the  first  war.  For  references  to  these  maps,  see  pages 
30  and  44. 

The    precise    effects    of    these    territorial    modifications,    both    in    area    and    in    population,    have    been 
approximately  determined  by  the  Statesman's  Year  Book  for  1914,  from  which  we  quote  the  following  tables: 

THE     REDISTRIBUTION    OF    TURKISH    TERRITORY    IN    THE    BALKANS,    SHOWING    ALSO 
THE  AREA  OF  THE  LAND  CEDED  TO   ROUMANIA  BY  BULGARIA 

Area. 

Sq.  Miles.      Sq.  Miles 
Adrianople     14,527 

To  Bulgaria    5,211 

To   Bulgaria    560 

To    Greece    112 

5,883 
Adrianople    (still    Turkish)     8,644 

Salonica    14,175 

To   Bulgaria 3,080 

To  Greece   9,300 

To   Servia 1,795 

Janina 6,723 

To    Greece    2,801 

To  •  Albania 3,922 

Monastir    11 ,708 

To  Greece   4,706 

To   Servia 3,473 

To  Albania   3,529 

Scutari     3,138 

To  Montenegro    168 

To    Albania    2,970 

Kossovo    12,830 

To    Montenegro     1 ,961 

To    Albania    896 

To   Servia 9,973 

Bulgaria   to    Roumania    2,969 


AREA  AND  POPULATION  OF  THE  BALKAN  STATES  BEFORE  AND  AFTER  THE  WAR 


Albania     

Bulgaria     , 

•Greece    , 

Montenegro     , 

Roumania 

Servia     

Turkey   in   Europe 


Area  in  square  miles 


Before  the  War 


33,647 
25,014 
3,474 
50,720 
18,650 
65,350 


After  the  War 


11,317 
43,310 
41,933 
5,603 
53,489 
33,891 
10,882 


Estimated  population 


Before  the  War 


4,337,516 
2,666,000 
250,000 
7,230,418 
2,911,701 
6,130,200 


After  the  War 


850,000 
4,467,006 
4,363,000 

500,000 
7,516,418 
4,527,992 
1,891,000 


FINANCES   AND   COMMERCE   OF   BULGARIA,  GREECE,   ROUMANIA  AND   SERVIA,    1912-13 

From  the  Statesman's  Year   Book,   1914 

[In  Millions  of  Dollars] 


Bulgaria  . 
Greece  . . 
Roumania 
Servia  . 


Revenue 


$28,076 
39,184 

104,471 
24,925 


Expenditure 


$23,045 
50,322 

104,466 
22,928 


Debt 


$171,156 
154,486 
320,623 
128,383 


Imports 


$41,512 
30,009 

110,982 
22,485 


Exports 


$30,472 
28,246 

134,743 
22,772 


THE    BALKAN    STATES 

With  New  Frontiers  according  to  Treaties  of  London,  Constantinople,  &  Bukharest. 


NOTE    TO    COLOURING 
Acquisitions  of  New  Territory  shown  in  darker  tints 


To  assist  the  reader  o 
results  of  the  second  Balkan 
and  Greece  of  territory  former 
countries,  as  their  boundarie 
J.  G.  Bartholomew,  of  The 
comparing  this  map  with  the 
the  nature  and  political  eff< 
two  maps  which  follow  it,  s 
apportionment  of  Macedonia, 
30  and  44. 

The    precise    effects    of 
approximately  determined  by  1 

THE     REDISTRIBUTION 
THE  AREA 


Adrianople 


To  Bulgaria 
To  Bulgaria 
To  Greece  . 


Adrianople    (still    Turkish 
Salonica    


To  Bulgaria 
To  Greece  . . 
To  Servia  . . 


Janina 


To    Greece 
To  •  Albania 


Monastir 


To  Greece  . 
To  Servia  . 
To  Albania 


Scutari 


To  Montenegro 
To    Albania    . 


Kossovo 


To  Montenegro 
To  Albania  — 
To  Servia  . 


Bulgaria    to    Roumania    

AREA  AND  POPULATK 


Albania     

Bulgaria     

Greece    

Montenegro     

Rouinania     

Servia     , 

Turkey   in   Europe 


FINANCES   AND   COMME1 


Bulgaria  . 
•Greece  . . 
Roumania 
Servia  . 


CARTE  ETHNOGRAPE 


ENQUETE   DANS    LES    BALKANS 


Point    de 


yers   Be/grade 

&vA  \ 

^-^IrW^ 


--.vy 


^ 

^ 


Ww 

otin^Btstrenai   ™ 


/JtzeaLjL^^W^ 


21°Est  de  Greenwiclx 


D'apr^s  Vasil  Kaniov 


IQTTE  DE  LAMACEDOINE 

» jiebulgare 


DOTATION    HARNFR! 


f)Q 

Meijmer  Bouroun 
Itierisos 
C.  Platy 

V 


______         rontienv  anciennes 

^..4.. ^..4.  t'rontiere.-i  m-lnflips 
Limitea  <tc  In  .I 

Echelle  de  1:  1.500.000 


Dessine.  par  Th .  Weinreb 


10       o  zo  MI 

y  =y  dur,Jm  i,s*ch,  u*ou,uxu,x  =y . 


100  km. 


.  Hrhard  f7^*.  Paris. 


CARTE  ETHNOGRAIH 


ENQUETE    DANS    LES    BALKANS 


Point 


D'apres  le  DT  Cvijic 


Serbo- Creates 

Serbes  delongue  albiiiiai.se  (Arnairtes) 

Bxdgarea 

Slaves  de  Macedoine 


Ore,- 

Rou  an 

Turk 


DOTATION    PARNFftif 


a*?  >f • 


(R    JE    JE 


ins  (KutzovalaquBa) 


Dfssine  par  Th~Weinr«b 


Frontier es  anaames 
Frantieres  octueHes 
Chfirans  de  fer 

Echelle  de  1 :  1,500.000 


100  km. 


=  ch  , «  =  cm  ,  v-  a. .  z-j 
la  LIBRAIRIE    HACHETTE   ET  C'5  PARIS 


Imp.  ErJiard/f^.Pans  . 


from  which  it  was  borrowed. 


H 


CAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 

A     000  845  682     4 


